Big Brother
by Mr. Magical
Summary: Emmet is having some trouble getting through Ballora's room to the Breaker room. So he decides to employ a new tactic that has some...unexpected results. (I don't own the cover art. Or FNAF for that matter.)
1. Chapter 1

**To be honest, I'm more used to the old location rather than the Sister one so…apologies if I screw up in the setting. It's just that I've had this idea for some time and I figured "Eh, why the heck not?"**

 **Rating may change as story progresses.**

 **Big brother Chapter 1: A bright idea.**

It was obvious that Emmet was having a bad day.

Or night. Or morning. Or whatever weird category 12 AM fell into.

From the beginning of this oh-so-wonderful job, he already knew something was wrong. If the shaky elevator ride hadn't tipped him off, then the place's unnatural darkness certainly did did. Circus Baby's land of Fun probably was some kid's dreamland in the daylight, but the darkness of night corrupted the child-friendly restaurant into something he might see in a haunted house or nightmare on the edge of his dreams.

Emmet felt like he would have liked to view this place in a much better light had it not been for the robots. Admittedly, they actually weren't all that bad looking, but then again, it was hard for him to appreciate how child friendly they appeared and all the fun programs that they were capable of when the mascots themselves appeared that they were more than likely to end his life.

On the ever-growing long list of enemies he had, the most recent ones were Ballora Ballerina, a ballerina who encouraged exercise after children ate (Which made Emmet seriously question the ideas of the pizzeria), Funtime Foxy, a white-furred vixen with pink patches of fur occasionally, funtime Freddy (Who appeared to be giving him the stink-eye and gave an aura similar to a small child forced to dress up in school clothes), a polar bear with pink spots on him and a small Bonnie puppet that he would use to entertain children with ventriloquism or whatever the Bonnie hand puppet qualified as. And the star of it all: Circus Baby; a small red-haired child that seemed to be the star of the show. With her blushed cheeks, white face paint, and rather kid-friendly appearance.

Once again,had he taken the day shift, maybe he would actually like this place and viewed these characters as circus performers instead of metallic monsters bent on ripping his guts out.

It also didn't help that the "training" for his job was awful and his trainer wasn't the most helpful person on earth. But to be fair, his "Trainer" wasn't even a person-It AI program that had been designed to try and help him do his shift throughout the night. However, Emmet was beginning to doubt the AI's capability, since it changed it voice to an angsty teen voice and had an autocorrect so bad that it had confused "Emmet" with "Eggs Benedict. "

Furthermore, the voiceover also seemed to lack any common sense whatsoever; since in just one night he had to crawl through vents (Which only reminded him of that one embarrassing time when he was little when he accidently went into a tube in the play pen and got so scared, he refused to come out and an adult had to cope and consult him to come out) and actually _shock_ the robots if they didn't get on stage.

Needless to say, he was looking for a new job application.

"Why did I even pick to work at this place?" Emmet said to nobody as he crawled through the vents from Circus Baby's room into the office.

 _I don't know. But then again, that's what I'm trying to find out as well?_

 _Oh Great, it's you again._

Emmet had almost forgotten about that little detail. In addition to AI, another disembodied voice was with him. It wasn't sure if the voice was like the AI that had so-greatly trained him, since it sounded like a sophisticated adult woman. But whatever the case was, it seemed to have more feelings and common sense than AI, since the voice had on a number of occasions saved his life in the past night alone by showing him a pocket where he could hide (And flip off) the babies that looked through and tried to open the circular door and bring to him what he could only assume was his doom.

Needless to say, Emmet was looking for an application to change positions.

 _You know what, I'll be a janitor next time._ He thought _I don't care if my payment is crappy of if I'm humiliated; I just need to make money without being torn to shreds by whatever these things were…._

 _That's what most people think after this night._ The feminine voice said

 _No dip Sherlock._

He had just finished checking on Circus Baby- who for some reason didn't show up today- and had just crawled back into the control module that continued to give off the same creepy aura that it always did. The old wallpaper and dim lights of the room caused the office to give off a greenish hue of a dead and decaying building.

 _Do not trust the handy voice…_ said a feminine voice. _If you do, Ballora will see you. And you will die._

 _Thanks for the protip._

The voice did sound trusting to an extent. But there was something _off_ about her. No to be mean to disembodied women, but something that voice seemed…maniacal about her. In fact, the idea of following the disembodied voice reminded him of an incident nine years ago where he had listened to a maniacal voice that had-

 _Don't think about it._ Emmet told himself _Just figure out a way to fix the stupid power._

This led him to his dilemma of the night: power failure. Currently, **(A/N: Get it? It's an electricity pun ;) ….yeah I'll just shut up now….)** He needed to find a way to restart the shock system, which involved crawling through Ballora Ballerina's room. He knew from past experience that sneaking into a girl's room was nearly impossible. And considering that he had shocked the ballerina mere minutes ago before the system failed, he could only imagine how pissed she would be to find the guy responsible for her misery trying to sneak through her room.

Luckily, he wasn't going to be charging into her room without a battle plan.

Then again "battle plan" was a bit too generous to describe the only two ideas had. For at the moment, his best options on how to get to the room without having his face smashed into a pulp came from the handy AI that had called him Eggs Benedict. That thing suggested he go super fast, which wouldn't have been a bad idea if he was Sonic or the Flash. But on the other hand, the female voice that he may or may not have been imagining had told him to slow down and commando-crawl through the room as slow as possible, since Ballora used motion detectors and couldn't detect him if he went slowly enough.

Emmet wasn't sure which one to trust. The AI, as incompetent as it was, did seem to know the robotic systems more than he probably knew. But then again, the mysterious woman who had saved his life multiple times already also seemed to more than he did, and possibly more than the AI.

He found himself in constant debate on who to trust, and as he continued to fight himself, he kept thinking about the many choose-your-own adventure novels he had done in the past, and how often he had picked the worst possible endings.

As a result, he was really looking for some other alternative to the two disembodied voice's ideas.

 _What could I do?_

He thought about that for a second. Personally, Emmet wanted to creep across the floor to get to the breaker, and if Ballora had seen him and was close, _maybe_ he could launch a surprise attack against her. There was certainly a good chance that it could work, and he _could_ make it to the breaker room unharmed if he harmed. And if he _did_ accidentally damage her, he could just blame the accident on mechanical failure or something similar.

It was certainly bad, stupid and possibly risky. But then again, it wasn't that much worse than the other ones.

 _Alright then…_ He thought _What can I use as a weapon…_

He scratched the back of his head. The room he was in didn't exactly have very many things that could be useful for beating up somebody, save for a few masks and some boxes on the top shelves.

 _There has to be something I can use as a weapon…_ he thought twirling his blonde hair _Maybe something from here…._

He pulled a cardboard box from above the desk about the size of duffel bag labeled "JUNK/ RANDOM CRAP/ OLD STUFF," in all caps.

 _There's probably something in here…_ He thought hearing something metallic rattle inside the box as he took it down.

Emmet opened the box and found to his surprise a magic marker, blush, some white makeup powder (Or at least, he _hoped_ it was white make-up powder) a poster of Baby who was giving him a stink-eye, and robotic parts that appeared to once belong to some kind of costume from long ago.

But the most interesting was a portable cassette player buried underneath all of the ancient stuff.

 _The heck?_

He brushed away the poster and robotic shell pieces and found that aside from the cassette player, there were also a few cassettes at the bottom of the box, one of them with the words _"Training tape for night shift. Night 2. 1983. New location."_ written in faded permanent marker.

Emmet picked up the cassette player and a couple of the tapes, feeling the ancient device in his hands

But maybe, there could be something in here he could use. Possibly, something that could help him out of this situation….

 _How do these things work again?_

He looked curiously at the device, pressing the many buttons to try and figure out which one opened the port.

 _Seriously?_ He thought angrily _How hard is it to-_

After pressing a button on the side of the ancient device, he saw the cassette player pop open, revealing an empty slot ready for a cassette to be inserted into.

He looked at the button he had slipped on and found in faded white letters the word _OPEN_ written in large caps font.

 _Oh..._ He thought _It's the giant button with the words OPEN on it you stupid moron..._

The next part after opening it seemed fairly straightforward. He put one of the cassette tapes into the cassette player, hearing the machine _wrr_ as it re-winded the tape to the beginning.

As it was rewinding he began to doubt if the cassette had anything useful, since the tapes were made in 1983.

Eh, _it's probably best if I listen to it._ He refuted to nobody _Besides, it's not like I'm doing anything better with my time right now._

A few seconds later, he heard a thick _Clack_ and the machine stopped rewinding.

He put the headphones that came with the player on his ears, making a sour face like he had listened to two pieces of Styrofoam rub against each other as he felt the ancient foam scratch his ears.

 _Just hit the play button…_ He thought trying to think of something else other than the feeling on his ears.

Without further adieu, and with the increasing want to get the retched headphones off, he hit the play button on the side of the player.

Initially, he felt like his ears were bleeding. Instead of helpful advice that he could possibly use, all he could hear was a _SCREEEEE-WRRRR-SCREEEEEEE_ of a tape.

He yanked off the headphones, hearing the tape scream more of its agonizing tune.

 _God..._ He thought rubbing his ears _What was I thinking?_

He continued to hear the tape scream away, making noises unknown and sounds unearable.

Yet, through the screech of the static he could almost hear something from the tape. Almost as if he heard a voice coming from the tape…

He looked back to the screaming tape.

 _Aw what the heck,_ he thought _what do I have to lose..._

He raised the headphone from the screeching tape a good four inches away from his ear, and to his surprise he actually heard something.

 _"SCRKKEEEE-SKREEEEE…..you might want to put on the-head. That seems to fool the Older models….you might want to even try it newer models-The mask trick won't work on Fo—though…."_

The cassette tape continued to make random noises pops that were un-understandable until the cassette tape ran out of film. But by then, Emmet already knew what the tape had said.

The cassette mentioned something about a mask. Specifically, a head that could trick robotic models….

He thought about this for a little bit. Sure, the disguise idea seemed farfetched and crazy, but that was nothing to say compared to the crazy stuff he had done in the past twenty-four hours. After all, he did just crawl through a freaking vent, flip off some babies that had tried to kill him, and cope with the annoying AI and the mysterious spirit companion, so the thought of a disguise didn't seem that out of reach compared to earlier.

He shifted his gaze from the cassette player to the office and searched for anything that he could use as a mask.

 _Mask …_ He thought _Where can I find a mask?_

His eyes fell upon several smaller baby masks on the wall, but those looked like they could barely fit on a child, let alone a nearly-fully grown twenty one-year-old college junior.

Aside from the child masks, Emmet couldn't see anything on the wall that he could use as a mask.

Maybe he didn't _need_ a mask.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he needed something that _looked_ like one.

The idea spread in his mind like a wildfire, and soon he was browsing the shelves for materials he could use.

 _Get creative…_ He thought _what can I do to make a mask?_

He looked around until his eyes fell on a box labeled "JUNK/CRAP/CRAPPY JUNK"

The box didn't have a mask, but it did have white makeup, a permanent marker, old robot pieces, and the poster of Baby on the wall that he could use to _make_ a mask.

Almost immediately, an idea sprouted in his mind.

He cleared the shiniest piece of wall he could find that closely resembled a mirror, and moments later, he taped the poster of Baby from the box to the top left corner of the cleared wall and picked up the Magic Marker and white make-up powder.

He looked at Baby's static face, and then compared her face to his face reflecting in the mirror. Slightly tan skin, Wavy blonde hair, a faint moustache that needed to be shaved soon, and some bags under his eyes as proof of the late night anxiety.

It was without a doubt a crazy idea, possibly even suicidal. But then again it's not like the plans offered by the other two intangible voices seemed to be that much of an improvement from his idea.

He lifted the magic marker and white make up powder near his face. Constantly checking with the picture of Baby to get his bearings on where he needed to draw the face plates and add the blush and white make-up on his face.

 _This better not bite me in the butt…_

He than began to apply the white make up powder, blush, and Magic marker over his face to try and look _exactly_ like baby.

 **End of chapter.**

 **Well? How was it? I hope you liked it…aside from the electricity pun.**

 **Anyway, if you have questions, comments, just wanna say hi, or correct my grammar, go ahead and write in the review button below or PM** **.**

 **If you liked this style, check out some of my other stories that I'm writing (Or have written.)**

 **Updates** **may be a bit random. Just to let you know (I have multiple stories to work on.)**

 **Anyway, that's all for now, and until next time,**

 **Stay magical my friends.**


	2. Chapter 2- Ballora's room

**Hello everybody, first of some responses to some reviews:**

 **FanficLovingPerson: Oh trust me. What I have in mind for him is** _ **much**_ **worse than getting killed...(Laughs evilly) in a good way though :)**

 **DannyPhantom619: Let's be honest here: I think we** _ **all**_ **would have done either of these two things (either that or wear a disguise or hide or...never mind...)**

 **Luxter77- Sure thing m8. No more (Or at least, far less) puns from now on.**

 **Also shout out to Guest, Random Guy, natsiawolf, Brizillia 2019, and TinkoTheWolf: Thanks for your reviews. You guys are the best :3**

 **And now, for your regularly scheduled chapter.**

 **Chapter 2- Ballora's room.**

 _Ballora Dance Gallery vent activated._

He was trying to be careful crawling through Ballora's vent, since he did not want to scrape off any of the white make-up that was on his face from the metal vents.

He also tried not to get too afraid, since he feared he would start sweating and cause both the makeup and face plate drawings to run.

But aside from these two concerns, he didn't seem that scared of facing Ballora. After all, he did have a plan(s), a flashlight if it got too dark, and he felt confident if he couldn't run away from her, he could use the flashlight as a mace and give her a few good dents.

With that mentality, he continued to crawl throughout the vents trying his best not to ruin his face or any other part covered with makeup.

 _Remember._ The disembodied female voice said as he approached an open vent _Stay low, stay slow._

 _Thanks Shakespeare._

Emmet crawled out of the vent and onto the cold floor of the dance studio. It wasn't hard to imagine this place as a wonderful utopia where food and exercise coexisted in a combination of bright colors. Unfortunately, didn't seem to be the case with the current darkness that shrouded and corrupted it. Friendly posters promoting activities such as _Run!_ And _have fun dancing!_ seemed to take on a much darker and more sinister appearance with the darkness, suddenly making him want to _Run_ and _have fun dancing!_ With whatever was hidden in the darkness of the room.

He saw that the only source of light in the room was the faint glow of the breaker room directly across the room, casting faint shadows and an occasional flicker.

He could tell that Ballora didn't appear to like having sleepy children in her studio, since the air conditioning in the dance studio alone seemed cranked up to the maximum and felt temperatures in the low sixties and possibly even high fifties. As a result, his fears of his mascara and makeup powder running from sweating diminished greatly.

He tried to make as little noise as possible, yet it seemed that even the tiniest of clicks were explosions in the cold almost empty room.

 _Okay..._ The female voice said _I know you can't see her, but Ballora is on her stage along with the rest of her dancers. You know what to do right?_

 _You bet I know._

 _Good.._ She said _Now...go do it._

 _Right._

Emmet stood up tall and relieved from his previous crouch position.

 _Wait. What are you doing? That's not what you're supposed to do at all!_

He pulled a flashlight out of his right belt loop, turned it on, and sent a bright beam of light into the room. The light was an improvement from the breaker room light, as he could now see that the dance gallery from a full and powerful light instead of the sad excuse that the breaker room had.

The first thing he saw was that the gallery was split in two. The Right half of the floor from his view had the signature black and white checkered floor and solid concrete wall that led to the breaker room, while the left half was made out of some kind of wooden material and

He turned his light to the other side and to his surprise; he saw something bright flash back at him.

He was confused, what was flashing at him?

He looked over the bright white light of the flashlight and saw to his disbelief: himself. More accurately, himself dressed up as Baby flashing a light at himself.

He was confused until he saw that the wall that he was looking at had the same dance rail facing the exact opposite direction of the other rail, making it physically impossible for them to be held up since there wasn't any wall for them to be supported.

His eyes followed the support rails until he saw that the wall he was looking at seemed to create an exact duplicate of the room he was in. And even seemed to capture his exact movements...

 _Oh..._ He thought connecting the dots _The wall is a mirror..._

He felt silly being scared of a full-length mirror.

 _I'm such an idiot..._

With that, Emmet seemed less afraid of the studio and even took a step when-

 _Why are you using a flashlight?!_ The disconnected female voice yelled _And why aren't you crouching?! Do you WANT to get yourself killed?! And why the frig are you dressed as Baby?!_

 _Relax._ He answered back _I have a plan._

 _Plan? What kind of plan could you possibly be thinking of?!_

 _Look lady,_ he tried to say politely _I listened to a phone recording. I found a trick that I know works, so I decided to see if I could sneak past Ballora._

 _What phone record- Oh..._

Her voice seemed to trail off from there, but a few moments later, she was back.

 _Are you talking about those tapes from 1983?_

 _The ones I found in a box labeled "Random Crap"? yeah, those ones._

Could he hear...laughter? For some reason, he heard a faint _He he he..._ coming from the familiar feminine voice.

A few seconds after the sound, he heard her speak again.

 _No offense,_ The voice giggled _But Ballora and the other robots have pretty advanced programming. I don't think a simple disguise will be enough fool them._

 _I don't know._ He said _I remember that I managed to sneak past some pretty advanced facial scanners with a disguise._

 _What do you mean remembered?_ The female voice asked _It almost seems as if you have done something like this before you took this job._

Emmet didn't think anything. He didn't want to anyway.

 _Are you hiding something from me?_ She asked curiously.

 _No._

 _Are you sure?_

 _Shouldn't you be criticizing my plan?_ He asked

 _No, but to be honest..._ She said playfully _I thought it was stupid at first, but now I'd like to see how this turns out. Surprise me. I never actually thought about a plan like this so...I'm kind of excited to see how it turns out._

 _Lovely._

 _I don't mean to ask, but is it possible for you to stop being sarcastic?_

 _Maybe when you stop asking stupid questions about my life._ He responded

She didn't seem to make any noise, and a few seconds later, he heard her respond.

 _You interest me night guard._ She said _I think I'll let you be for now and see how things turn out from up here._

 _So you're here watching me?_ He asked looking around the room for anything that could be used to look at him.

He didn't find or hear anything from his disembodied comrade.

 _Hello?_ He tried to call out.

No noise.

 _Well...looks like it's just me then..._ he thought to himself.

He moved the flashlight to the left part of the room and saw an enormous performance stage was on the left side of the room, with Ballora herself on stage.

She twirled unnaturally slow on the stage. Her long slender limbs rotating lazily as she continued to be in a balanced tree pose. Copying her dance routine were five smaller ballerinas who looked more like those artist mannequins which Emmet used to buy for art but later would transform into action figures whenever he got bored with them.

Ballora's tight face appeared to be made of plastic, and appeared to be quite peaceful with a default facial expression and two large purple eyelids covering her eyes. He didn't know if Ballora was asleep or trying to prove that "I'm so good at dancing, I could do it with her eyes closed!" but he was hypnotized by her performance. She seemed to have almost everything that professional ballet dancer would strive for years to achieve.

Suddenly felt lost knowledge of ballet rise up as he continued to look at the tall slender ballerina. While he himself did not take ballet, he remembered how much his little sister _loved_ ballet nine years ago before-

 _Don't think about her._ He thought casing the idea of that girl from so long ago, and how he had failed her. _Focus on the task at hand._

 _Do you mind telling me what exactly happened to this girl nine ye-_

 _No._ He said cutting the voice off.

He removed his gaze from Ballora's hypnotic twirling and kept the flashlight on her. The ballerina didn't appear too ticked off by the light as she continued to twirl slowly and gracefully through the air without a care in the world.

Emmet kept the light on her, since that seemed to keep her from not killing him and so that she continued that incredible twirl that she was doing.

But upon taking a single step, the ballerina sprung from her lazy rotation. She arced through the air doing several quick flips and turns before landing squarely and silently less than three feet in front of him.

 _Woah..._ He thought amazed by her sudden flip.

Just as quickly as that amazing feeling came, it left as she opened her large purple eyelids. What should have been regular eyes were actually empty sockets with small white pinpricks that almost seemed to slice through him like lasers.

Suddenly, the possibility of beating Ballora with a flashlight went out faster than a blown-out candle.

She looked at him quizzically, her small pinpricks seeming to analyze any and all details that were on his face.

He was trying his hardest not to freak out. He was trying not to look at Ballora.

He could feel the cold air circulate around him as she continued to silently twirl around him until he felt her cold plastic fingers graze the back of his neck, sending goosebumps down his spine.

"I knew somebody was in my studio..." Ballora whispered, her voice sounding like smooth, sub-zero water.

He then felt another one of Ballora's smooth plastic hand reach for his left jawbone.

 _Oh No..._

Almost immediately, he knew what was about to happen: With the way Ballora placed her hands, she was about to snap his neck.

 _I'm fuuuuuuuuuubbbbeerrrrrrnuuuuuucccccckkkkeeeeeedddd_...

 _Oh yes you are,_ the female voice chimed in _And this is the part where I get to say "I told you so,"_

 _Yes. Yes this is._ He said admitting. _I guess it's not to bad. After all, I'm gonna be able to-_

But instead of the loud _crack_! of his neck snapping, he felt Ballora's fingers rotate around his joing and neck, and soon, the dancer was facing him two large and violently violet eyes instead of the empty eyeless sockets she had before.

"Baby," She asked him "What are you doing in my room at this hour?"

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Mainly I had originally planned this part of the chapter to part of the larger part, and I didn't really like that Idea, since I seemed to drag the story/chapter on more than I felt like it should.**

 **Thanks for reading and until next time,**

 **Stay magical my friends. :)**


	3. Chapter 3- The plan in action

**See. I told you it wouldn't take too long! :) I had a fairly busy week and week, but luckily, I was able to type most of it in the past few days.**

 **Anyways, questions from folks like you:**

 **Therainbokitty: Yeah. Forgot to mention that he made a dress out of red napkins taped together and hair out of red yarn. Hope that clears things up!**

 **As always, thanks for your encouragement, you guys are the best!**

 **And now, your regularly scheduled chapter (Hope it isn't too long):**

 **Chapter 3- The plan in action**

Emmet blinked a few times. Trying to process just what exactly had happened to him.

"What again?" he asked

"I said, 'what are you doing in my room Baby?'" Ballora asked.

He blinked a few times, processing what had just happened.

 _Oh thank God..._ he thought releasing a shallow sigh of relief. _She thinks I'm Baby..._

 _What?!_ The female voice mentally outraged _WHAT?!_

He ignored the raging disembodied figure and focused on answering the question that Ballora had asked him.

"I'm…." He said in his sister's best voice impression "I'm trying to get to the breaker room."

He thought his voice sounded pretty convincing, yet he wasn't entirely sure if she bought the impersonation. He felt that his voice was a little squeaky and possibly some hints of puberty were still there. And her artificial eyes still seemed to be scanning and searching his face for anything incriminating.

He continued to be on his nerve's end; unsure if she had actually believed his disguise or was bluffing to try and get him to lower his guard for a sneak attack. He wasn't sure which one it was, but he could only assume the latter.

He saw her look up and down before focusing in on him.

"Well you could have just asked instead of barging in, Baby." She said entering a stable tree pose "You know I like my privacy..."

"Yeah...I'll give a warning next time," he continued

"Alright." She said "But just out of curiosity, why exactly _are_ you going to the breaker room?"

Emmet paused for a little bit, but luckily, he had prepared ahead just in case this question would be asked.

"Well, light in Bab- I mean- my room is flickering on and off. And I figured that maybe that there was something wrong with the power. So I decided that I should go fix the problem by checking the breaker room."

Ballora didn't appear convinced. But she did make a sigh, leaving her tree pose to stand on the tips of her toes and put her fingers between her large purple eyelashes.

"Baby," She said "It's probably just Freddy goofing around again in the back room."

"Oh..." He said uninterestingly.

Suddenly Ballora started to shake a little; her slender hands balling up into tight fists followed by a scowl growing on her face which was usually smiling.

"That bear _really_ needs to know when to stop joking around. I mean seriously, _nobody_ thinks his pranks or that puppet are funny anymore! and why the-"

He could tell from her increasingly angry voice that Ballora had a bone to pick with Freddy. Yet before she seemed to enter an explosion of anger, she stopped herself from talking, took a deep breath, and relaxed.

"Sorry Baby," She said "Sometimes that bear _really_ pushes my buttons sometimes."

"I know how you feel,"

He could tell Ballora wanted to do or say more from her constant and loud exhaling. Yet she seemed unable to do so, since he looked like Baby who, after all, was still a child.

"Well..." She exhaled "If you see him, tell him to get out of there before I run out of yoga poses that control my anger."

"Will do!" He said

She sighed as he saw her enter a triangle pose. And for a moment, Emmet thought he could hear her whisper " _At least I'm not the only competent being in this building..."_

With that he returned to walking towards the breaker room. He kept the flashlight on her just in case she pulled a fast one or did some pretty acrobatic maneuver.

"Baby. I know you're scared of the dark, but can you point that flashlight away from me?" She asked

"Sorry."

He moved the flashlight away from her to the smaller ballerinas-who seemed to have move a _little_ closer than from what he remembered last time- and proceeded to walk to the breaker room door.

He took a few steps forward, and glanced back to still see Ballora doing a pose.

 _Eh. I think she bought my disguise._ He thought as he moved on from her.

 _How did-but-why..._ The disembodied voice stammered from what he could assume was amazement.

 _See._ He thought _I told you I knew what I was doing._

He felt his confidence bloon as he was now a few feet from entering the breaker room. But right as he touched the brass handle of the door, the unthinkable happened.

"YOU SEEM TO BE TAKING A WHILE." The loud voice of the AI boomed through an above speaker "PLEASE INCREASE YOUR PACE SO THAT WAY YOU CAN SNEAK PAST BALLORA AND GET TO THE BREAKER ROOM!"

AI's statement sent chills through him like he had been thrown into a pool full of ice.

 _Uh oh..._

He tried to walk faster, just in case Ballora had heard. But as quickly and unexpectedly as the AI's statement came, he saw her fall from the sky just like earlier that night and land on the tips of her toes. Blocking him going to the breaker room.

Suddenly, Emmet had the feeling that this wasn't going to go well.

"What was that?" Ballora asked

"That?" He said

"Yes." She said "The weird voice that said ' _sneak past Ballora and get to the breaker room_ ' moments ago."

 _Why AI..._ He screamed mentally.

 _I knew that this was too good for it to be true._ The female voice chimed in.

 _Remind me to pound the voice actor for AI if I get out of this situation._

"T-t-that? Oh, that's another reason I'm going to the room. It's a stupid AI that's been yelling random stuff like that all day. I was hoping that somebody would do something about it but it doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon..."

The ballerina didn't look convinced. Suddenly, the confidence that she had in him moments ago vanished as her violet eyes focused in on him. He could feel them combing through his body, searching for imperfections that she may not have been aware of earlier.

Emmet figured he needed to give a slightly convincing reason for leaving; since it appeared that the longer he was in here, the higher the chance that he would be caught.

He tried to make a break for the door, only to find that the mini Ballerinas had blocked off the main door.

 _No no no..._

"Baby, when did you get _taller?_ "

Emmet could hear a mental plate shatter into thousands of pieces from her statement

"Taller?" he asked

"Yes..." she assured "I remember you being about four and a half feet. And from your current position, you seem to be about five nine or six feet..."

 _Oh God..._

 _I told you she was smart._ The feminine voice said snarky manner

 _Shut up! If you don't have anything nice to say or something that can get me out of this mess, don't say it!_

He bit his lip, looked around with his flashlight and saw that Ballora's smaller ballerinas moved from blocking the do to to _surrounding_ him. He saw their tiny three feet bodies slowly closing in on him, ready to zerg rush him into oblivion.

The situation started to look pretty bleak for Emmet, until an idea suddenly flickered in his mind.

"Oh…it's…uh…it's...a... a new strategy!" he lie

"New strategy?" She asked

"Y-yeah!" He continued "So apparently, the owners are trying to make me appear more….leadershippy and such. You know. Taller people look more authoritative and….whatnot…..kind of like you..."

Ballora continued to appear unconvinced.

"Well...you're taller than me so I feel that, you know, you're kind of in charge around here..." he added

He saw the ballerina's eyes darted up and down, before a finally settling on his torso.

"Now that I think about it, when did you start wearing khacki pants under your red dress?"

"Um..."

"Are you lying to me?" She snapped

"No. "

"Why is your dress made up of napkins?" She said "And your hair, why is it..."

Before Emmet could make up an excuse about why he had made his dress out of red napkins and his two pigtails out of red yarn, Ballora lunged toward him. He flinched, fearing that she would punch his face or torso, but then saw her arm reach and rip off the red dress that he had hastily taped together to his waist with red napkins, followed by the two fake red pigtails he made out of some red yarn he found lying around. Leaving Emmet back to his normal khaki-panted, blue-shirted, blonde-haired self.

While Emmet wondered why Ballora chose to rip off his hair and dress before any part of his body, there were more important matters at hand: like how she appeared that she wanted to rip him to shreds.

Her eyes had reverted back into empty sockets with white pinpricks, her face turning into a scowl and began to approach him. Her once light foot taps turning into heavy _Clomps!_.

"What are you….." She growled her voice a whole octave lower than before "And what are you doing in _my_ studio!"

He didn't bother trying to lie at this point. Ballora already knew he wasn't baby.

 _You are so dead._

 _She said what_ _instead of_ _who.._. He thought _Maybe she still doesn't know I'm human...Perhaps I can use this to my advantage..._

"Okay, maybe I wasn't a bit honest with you to begin with," he said in his normal voice

Ballora's face plates began to shift like pulsing veins on an angry man as she seemed to completely tune out anything he was saying.

 _Well...I told you your plan was hopeless._

 _Shut up! I'm not dead yet! Besides, even the word "Hopeless" has the word "hope" in it. And if you re-arrange the letters, you get peeslosh!_

 _Peeslosh?_

 _Yeah...You know on second thought I shouldn't have done that...sorry about that..._

"Do you why I had to lie?"

He saw Ballora start to spin. First slowly, but then faster and faster before she started to look like a blur. Instinctively, he hit the deck and saw her fragile-looking ballet shoe slice soar overhead, creating a huge gash in the solid grey concrete wall.

While Emmet experienced a mixed feeling of awesomeness and sheer terror at what ballora did with her kick.

 _Stop thinking about that._ He told himself _You have to stay alive, remember?_

He then resumed to his original thought: explaining why he had lied before Ballora and the mini dancers.

"You see... I had to lie because...because..."

Ballora started wind up for a second kick. The only thing he could see aside from the seething ballerina was a poster of Circus baby herself saying _Surprise!_

It wasn't much, but Emmet was willing to take just about anything at this point as he saw Ballora begin to wind up for another roundhouse kick into oblivion.

"I led because…..because I'm a surprise gift for somebody!"

Emmet closed his eyes as he saw Ballora spin faster, unfazed by what he said. From this point, he figured it was hopeless and proceeded to closed his eyes and brace for impact; He couldn't have imagined his last words coming out like they did, and he could already imagine the plastic shoe smashing into his skull and sending his brains or other organs, depending on where she kicked him, across the wall.

He found himself bracing for her foot of fatality, yet for some reason, he didn't feel the crush of plastic against his skull or any part of his body for that matter.

He opened up one of his eyes and to his surprise, saw that Ballora's slipper of slaughter was merely inches away from his face and pointed at him the same way one would point a blade or gun at a cornered enemy.

"A…surprise?" she asked

"Yeah!" He said feeling some much needed relief "A-and everybody loves surprises...right?"

Ballora looked unimpressed by his statement.

 _I'm so dead..._

 _Like I said...you should have gone slowly...You could have survived if you had. Just. LISTENED. TO. ME._

 _Not much we can do about it now can we?_

He was half expecting her to start twirling again, winding up a kick that would surely leave his brains and other organs in his head on the wall and floor.

But suddenly, she lowered her foot and stood in a normal standing position.

"Well...I do admit I like an occasional surprise. Makes my existence a bit more bearable..."

" _Exactly."_ He continued feeling a glimmer of hope as long as he could keep talking to her

"Although I must ask, for who is this surprise is for?"

He bit his lip again. He tried to think of some other robot who would need a six-foot companion aside from Ballora (Who defiantly didn't need one) and the Funtime Animatronics, who from first glance looked like they didn't really need any companions aside from themselves.

That really only left one robot in the building: the very robot he was trying to impersonate.

 _Well, I do look like her..._ He thought _Minus well go through with the whole thing..._

"Why Baby of course," He answered "The company thought she needed somebody to look up to. You know, brotherly relationship, and stuff..."

The ballerina raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"They saw that she looked a little sad. I mean, she can only have so much fun with...whatever those things are...so they made me to try and relate to her, you know..."

Ballora continued to look unconvinced at his statement. But slowly, her scowl turned to a basic face, before finally forming a face of delight.

"Ohhh…" She said "Are you suppose to be her older brother or something?"

"Y-yeah!" he stammered.

"Do you tell me your name and why you were created?"

 _Why does she keep asking so many questions?_ He thought. He couldn't think of anything immediately, save for the novel study of _1984._ But then again, that was all he really needed if he wanted to be her pretend older brother.

"Of course I am!" He said "I-uh- actually that's my name! Big Brother! You know, always watching over her to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid…."

 _Really? Big Brother? And your job is to always watch over her? What a creative and original character._..The voice commented.

 _I don't see you offering any better ideas!_

 _If I was Ballora you would be dead on the spot._..

 _And if I had it my way, I would be getting paid more for doing this. But it looks like neither of our dreams are coming true today are they?_

The feminine voice didn't appear to have any comebacks, as she didn't say anything. But Ballora seemed to be interested in Emmet and his attire.

"Why did you dress up as her?" She asked.

"Look here," He whispered to the smooth left side of her face for what he guessed was her ear. "I'm trying to keep a low profile. You know, _really_ surprise her. And you _know_ how much of a blabbermouth the others can…so I had to disguise myself _as_ baby that way I could slip by, fix baby's power room, hide in there, and give her a great big surprise!"

She made a questionable face. A few seconds later, the thought

"Well...Freddy does tend to let his mouth run more than it should..." She said

" _Exactly,_ " he said "Now...if you don't mind, I need to go to the breaker room, you know, turn on the light, and give Baby a great big surprise!"

He added some jazz hands to the end to try and emphasize his point and possibly give the ballerina that he was a nice person.

He didn't know if it was the jazz hands or the friendly personality he had made up seconds ago, but Ballora actually smiled and laughed, her eyes reverting back to their violate state and her voice changing again, this time to a deep and rich sound like dark chocolate.

"You seem to be nice," She said "Alright. I'll let you go to the room. Now that I think about it, Baby did seem kind of lonely...also I apologize for any _hostile_ actions earlier."

"Eh, it's cool." He said

"You are very nice you know." She complemented.

"Hey, I'm programmed that way. At least, ninety percent of the time."

He then actually saw Ballora _laugh_ instead of the plastered on smile she had before. Yet, he could hear _another_ laugh. A laugh that seemed deeper and defiantly _not_ Ballora's.

"Was that a _laugh?"_ he asked

"I thought I heard another one..."

She stopped smiling. And then her gaze turned to the door

"Yes." she said "It was. In fact-now that I think about it-I know _just_ who it belongs to..."

He saw her silently and swiftly tip-toe to the door labeled _breaker_ room. She grabbed the brass handle so quietly; had Emmet not been looking at her he wouldn't have even heard the click of her plastic skin on the steel handle.

Immediately, she twisted the knob and yanked open the door at an alarming speed.

Two robots tumbled out from the breaker room door. The first one being a snow-white vixen with bright red lips, pirate getup from the hat and sword sheathed on her side, and an enormously fluffy tail. The other robot being what Emmet could only guess as a polar bear with a pink belly and snout, along with a bright blue bunny puppet instead of a right hand.

The two lay on the floor, the polar bear on top of the snow-white vixen and struggling to get up from each other.

"Well...that plan went sour fast..." The polar bear muttered.

"Freddy!" The snow-white vixen gasped "Yer crushin' the lower half of me body!"

"Sorry Foxy!" he apologized.

The two scrambled to try and get off of each other, but their attempt was stopped by a single, loud, and slicing _snap_ of Ballora's plastic fingers.

Immediately, Funtime Foxy and Freddy's eyes looked up to the tall ballerina's cross face. Emmet saw their face of argument immediately transform into the face of two children who had just gotten into a whole lot of trouble.

"Foxy. Freddy." She scolded with her icy-cold speech "Care to explain to me why you two circus clowns are in my room?"

Foxy's eyes darted to Freddy, who in turned looked his eyes over to his right hand, which had a puppet of a blue bunny whose eyes turned back to Freddy.

"Well...ye see..." She stammered "I...It'd be Freddy's idea!"

"My idea?" Freddy said "You were the one who said 'let's go in Ballora's room tonight! Maybe she's bored and will do something entertaining!'"

"I don't remember sayin' such a thing!" Foxy snapped "I said 'man, I'd be bored, maybe we should ask the others if there'd be anything else we'd do tonight'!"

"That's basically the same thing!"

"No it'd be not ye paunchy, idle-headed miscreant!"

"Are you insulting me?"

"No! It'd only be sayin' the truth laddie!"

"You want to settle this now?!"

"Well why not? Unless yer _scared..."_

Freddy suddenly took the sky blue bunny puppet, and made his smaller arms into a fighting gesture.

"I'll take you with one hand behind my back!" The bunny puppet mocked "Put 'em up, _put 'em up!_ "

"Oh _that'd_ be the last straw!"

Suddenly, Funtime Freddy tackled Freddy, causing the two to turn into a white ball of fluff, fighting and anger.

Emmet didn't know if he was suppose to stop the two, but Ballora ran to them. Like an adult trying to stop two children from fighting.

"Freddy! Foxy! Stop it right now!" Ballora commanded leaving her spot as he saw her trying to separate the two rockem sockem robots from destroying each other.

While Emmet wanted to see how this all turned out, he decided to keep his distance away from the brawling robot and use this opportunity to sneak away as he saw her trying to keep the two funtime robots from turning this into an all-out brawl.

He snuck across the room, careful not to attract the attention of Ballora or any of the other robots, and gently placed his hand on the door.

He turned it, half expecting there to be an empty room with whatever breaker rooms had.

But instead, a two-legged figure stood in the doorframe.

The figure was about the size of a small child, with a bright red dress, two red pigtails, and a white face with faceplates that looked exactly like the ones he had copied minutes ago. In addition, it looked Baby was tired, as her eyes seemed to show signs of sleepiness and fatigue from the day.

For the longest time, the two looked at each other. Baby's grass-green eyes piercing into his.

A heavy cloud of silence fell upon them, which soon then spread throughout Ballora's dance gallery as he could hear both Funtime animatronics quarrel stop.

Finally, the red-haired sleep-deprived baby said something.

"Uh...who are you?" She asked

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Well...this took longer to write than expected. Hope you guys didn't get too bored!**

 **Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope to see you next time!**

 **Until then,**

 **Stay Magical my friends.**


	4. Chapter 4- Introductions

**Author note: In this story: Circus Baby is approximately four and a half feet. Sorry if this upsets people.**

 **Thanks for the info fanficlovingperson, I'll try to keep up with canon information now. That way I can avoid any more confusion.**

 **Without any more delay, let's start this chapter.**

 **Chapter 4- Introductions**

Had Emmet known that there was a child on the other side of the breaker room door he would have thought of his escape tactics a bit better than he previously did.

The red-haired child continued to squint at him with her puzzling green eyes the same way somebody who had just woken up would look at a burning car.

Out of all the robots he had seen, her eyes looked the most realistic. So real, that it was as if there was another person doing the exact same trick that Emmet had thought of doing with the fake make up disguise

Had it not been for Baby's unusual proportions and the fact that her faceplates would occasionally move, he would have honestly thought that she was another person who had thought of the same stupid idea.

He expected her to say something other than what she had said earlier, but the circus Baby continued to stare at him like an exotic animal. After a few minutes of this, he figured it was about time to break the glacier-thick ice between them.

"H-hi." He started.

Baby's eyes continued to look up and down.

"Um, who are you?"

Her voice sounded timid. Which Emmet couldn't blame her for. After all, some stranger was standing right in front of her.

"I'm..." He said mustering up the will to talk. "I'm your older brother,"

He wished he could smack himself in the fact for how he weakly he had said that. He expected a look of disgust, or skepticism at his claim of him being her older sibling. Yet like so many things that had happened that night, he was surprised by her reaction.

Her face of confusion quickly changed into one of...joy?

She unexpectedly lunged at him, causing every nerve on him to suddenly spike up. Yet instead of a crushing blow or powerful shove, he felt a the child give a great big hug. Or at least, as large as a hug she could give.

He was taken aback by her strength. Apparently, rental robotic children were _much_ stronger than they appeared. He could feel joints in his back crack, leaving a sickenly comfortable feeling down his spine.

"Are you cracking?" Baby asked, taking notice of the loud sounds coming from his spine.

"A little." He winced "But it's all right."

"Your really soft." She commented.

"Yeah...they figured you needed somebody who was nice and soft to hug." He said

Emmet himself thought that excuse was so bad that it was right up there with "Cause I said so" But Baby didn't seem to mind the bad excuses he was giving. Her once dozy and sleepy gaze had quickly shifted into one of excitement and alertness at the current event.

"I...I wasn't expecting this at all!" She said breaking her hug and now pacing around extatically "Wow! I never even knew that I had an older brother!"

Suddenly, she stopped pacing, and had an expression of confusion.

"Now that I think about it, what do older brothers do?"

Although Emmet knew what they did, he shrugged anyway. "I don't really know. All I'm programmed to do is just make sure you don't do anything stupid."

"Interesting..." She said "Since we're doing introductions, I guess I can introduce you to my Babs!"

"Your...what?"

Suddenly, he saw two eyes peer from behind a He saw the two children who had tried to kill him that night.

They made a fast dash, and then he saw them behind Baby's eyes locked on to his, and for a moment, he thought that the small robots had actually _identified_ Emmet, since their last encounter resulted in him flipping them off while keeping a heavy door filled with holes closed shut.

The Babs didn't appear to dash at him or snitch on their mother-like figure, so Emmet decided to take his conspiracy hat off and calm down.

"Babs! Oh I'm sorry..." She sighed trying to Sheppard them out from behind her legs "Their just really shy,"

"I see." He said, seeing how the two children continued to hide behind Baby's and occasionally poke outside from her dress. "Personally I can't really blame them for being that way."

"So...anything you would like to do?"

 _Leave?_ He thought, but then again, he doubted she would let him do that. At least, not without major implications.

 _Well.._ he thought looking at his watch and saw it was only a little past one _I'm alone. Minus well do something..._

"Know any good games you want to play with?"

She scratched her head before her eyes lit up like a lightbulb

"I-I know!" She said "W-w-wait here! I'll go get them!"

Suddenly the red haired child and her smaller babies moved out from the room to the breaker room where he could hear the sounds of ventilation thumps before silence.

 _I guess that ends th-_

Suddenly, he felt a heavy slap on his back.

"Gah!"

"So...yer really the lassie's older siblin' eh?" Foxy asked

"Who else do you think I am?" he said flatly.

She let a chuckle out. One shantier and sounded far more masculine than he would have expected to come from her.

"Ye seem like a good kid laddie," She said "Besides, It'd be good getting' somebody here. Frankly, it'd get a little borin' here sometimes..."

"Well, you did say that you came I n here because got bored, right?"

She smiled, and revealed a toothy grin with a few gold and silver teeth.

"I'd believe I'd never introduce meself yet," She said extending her left arm "The rest of the crew call me Funtime Foxy, but personally, I'd prefer to be called Vulpes"

"Vulpes eh?" he said shaking her steel-hard grip. "Interesting name. And a little less of a mouthful than Funtime Foxy."

"That'd be why I picked it," She added "And ye'd be..."

"Big Brother." He answered

She let out a little chuckle.

"What?" He asked

"Ah nothin' thinkin' 'bout how yer name fits the theme ye know? Baby, Big Brother, that sort of thing."

"Eh...I don't know about your name, but it sounds like it's from another language."

"Probably laddie," She said.

"Hello good sir!" Freddy said introducing himself. "I'm Freddy,"

"So I've noticed."

Freddy heaved a sigh.

"I guess I get around pretty fast don't I?"

"Yes." He answered "Yes you do."

"Can I introduce myself?" said a light any mysterious voice out of nowhere.

"Um..." Freddy said "Sure?"

"Okay!"

Suddenly Freddy's arm seemed to move all on it's own, revealing blue bunny hand puppet.

"Hello I'm Bon!" The puppet said "The difference between me and Freddy is that one of us is friendly, kind and makes children laugh! while the other is Freddy,"

"Hey! I heard that!" Freddy snapped "Don't _make_ me gag you agai!"

"Youcansilencemebutyoucan'tsiclencethetru-" he tried to say before Freddy stuck his large fist into the puppet's mouth.

He felt like he was watching a really bad ventriloquism act. And most likely, it was because he _was_ watching bad ventriloquism act. After seeing Freddy tussel with the himself or the puppet, he finally relaxed and carried the blue bunny off of the stump of his arm where it used to be

"Sorry about that..." Freddy said fighting the puppet "Bonnie's a bit of a wild- OW! Hey! I thought I told you not to bite!"

Suddenly, this once embarrassing ventriloquism act started to take a bit of a darker turn, since Bonnie was now biting Freddy's hand even though the bunny had been completely removed from his hand. At first, Emmet thought he was seeing a version of _Night of the Living Dummy_ and wondered for a second.

 _Emmet._ He told himself _Most of these guys are robots, odds are that_

Freddy meanwhile seemed to have finally gotten control of the kid-friendlier and much less sinister version of Slappy the Sock puppet.

"That's it! Time out for you!" The bear said opening a chest cavity and throwing the puppet in there. It landed with a slightly hollow thud before he saw it close.

"Like I said. He's a bit wild."

"I hate to break up these introductions," Ballora interrupted "But do you mind doing this...somewhere else? Specifically _OUTSIDE OF MY ROOM!?"_

Emmet flinched at her sudden and unexpected loudness, along with Vulpes and Freddy.

"Yea, lad, she does have a point. Sorry for invadin' yer privacy lass!" She yelled over his shoulder.

"Same thing Funtime Foxy said Ballora!" Freddy added

"For the last time Freddy!" Vulpes fumed "Me name'd be Vulpes, not Funtime Foxy ye full-gorged lout!"

"If your name was Vulpes I would be calling you that. But it isn't _Funtime Foxy._ "

"Why ye-"

He then heard the loud _AHEM!_ Of Ballora. Although she didn't speak, it was obvious that she meant for them to get out of her room.

"We'd be settlin' this later." She said.

"Sure thing. _Funtime Foxy."_ He sneered.

Vulpes made a low growl, like how a dog or cat would make if they were really upset or angry, and just shook her head before storming off into the breaker room, followed by sound of several doors opening and closing.

"Freddy." Ballora scolded.

"Alright." He said leaving "Well...It was nice meeting you Big Brother. Hope we can talk again soon."

"Same here." He said

He then saw Freddy go into the breaker room. Followed by a few thumping sounds and later, nothing in the studio save for him, Ballora, the Mini Dancers, and the thick silence around them

He was about to walk out when he felt her plastic hand touch his shoulder.

"I only wanted those two clowns to go." She said "I don't mind _you_ being in here."

"You don't?"

She shook her head. "In fact, I welcome your presence here."

"Really?"

"You are different from those two." She said "Different in a good way."

"Aw...thanks..." He said.

She nodded "That, and you still have to fix the breaker room."

"Oh...right...do you mind?"

"Not at all." She said moving back to her stage along with the other small dancers on there. "Just be sure whenever you enter here, just say it to let me know, okay?"

"Sure thing." He said "Now...about that breaker room..."

 **A few minutes later...**

Fixing the breaker room was rather easy. In a few minutes, he had managed to restore most of the electrical power that had once been broken by some unknown and probably random source.

Afterwards, he had taken into statement on how Ballora respected her privacy, and let the door crack open a little bit so that way he could warn her that he was done working in the breaker room. Upon opening it however, he could hear the deep chimes of music. If he could hear hard enough, he could hear the sounds of...singing. He could hear her deep and rich voice fill up the room along with her music.

" _...All I see is an empty room. No joy in but an empty tune. It's so good to sing all day. To dance, to spin, to fly away..."_

He had found himself so engrossed in her singing that he had almost forgotten that he still had a job to do.

"I'm going into your room." He interrupted.

As soon as he said that, her singing and the music stopped.

"Thank you for letting me know." He heard her say. "You may enter."

"Thanks." He said moving across from the breaker room to the control module vent. After crawling through there, he found himself back into the control room.

He sighed as he entered the room. Relived that he was no longer

 _Only two AM..._ He thought _And I have to stay here till six..._

His initial thought to pass the time was to play _Civilization VI_. Nothing like a game of Civ to kill excess time. In fact, Emmet was about to consider trying to find a computer so he could download his game from that account when he started hearing _THUMPS_.

Emmet jumped and got into a defensive stance, ready to fight whatever came out of the vent form Baby's room.

Luckily, none of the Babs seemed out for revenge. Only baby seemed to be crawling through the vent, as he saw her head crawl out from underneath the vent. She seemed to be carrying things as well. A few decks of cards, a couple action figures, some LEGOs, a _Circus Baby's world of Fun!_ Coloring book, and a checkers board.

"Do...do you mind playing with me?" She asked "The Babs usually are asleep at this time and It gets really boring when they are..."

 _Eh, What could I possibly lose?_

"Alright." He said "What would like to play?"

 **Several hours later.**

He would have never admitted that he was having fun.

They had originally started play chess, but after about five minutes, it had devolved from an organized game to some sort of large action-figure game. He had found a way to set up the deck of cards (He thought about trying to teach Baby how to play poker but realized it was probably safe that she was left in the dark about a few things...just like a big brother ought to do.) into a large pyramid.

He wasn't entirely sure about the story going on, but he figured it had something to do with stealing some information from a vague yet menacing government agency brining about the world in some dramatic and flashily manner. As there would be fights on the card pyramid, and cars would occasionally crash, causing the pyramid to collapse over.

Whatever the story was, it seemed to make Baby happy. Which in turn seemed to make him happy.

Playing with Baby seemed to almost make Emmet he was an adult who was on break from college and sometimes, even forget time itself. They were at some part of the story where there was a massive air war going on that involved the vague yet menacing government agency and the protagonists, and had she not asked a question, they probably would have played much longer.

"PEW PEW PEW...Uh...brother?"

"Yeah?"

"How long have we been playing again?"

He looked down at his watch and to his dismay; more than four hours had gone by.

"Dang...it's six twenty..."

Realizing that he had overstayed his shift by about twenty minutes, He began to walk to the elevator before somebody saw him play with Baby.

"Where are you going?"

He turned around and saw that at the end of the room, a red-haired child stood near the control module with the card-tower pyramid.

"Arent you going to stay with us?" She asked

He sighed.

He could tell that wherever this was going it, it was not going to end well.

"Baby..." He said "I hate to rain on your parade, but can't stay."

Suddenly, Baby's face seemed to take a sad new depth. One of which he didn't think baby could create.

"W-w-why can't you stay?" She asked

Her question seemed to pin Emmet in a rather uncomfortable uncomfortable way.

"Can I trust you little sis?"

"Of course."

He leaned over her and whispered in what would be near her ear.

"I'm not an official character." He said.

Her eyes seemed to snap open with what he said.

"Y-y-your not?" She asked

"No." he said "At the moment, I'm only a prototype of the character." He said

"A...prototype?"

He nodded. "The company sent me here tonight to see if everything was working fine. See if my system functioned normally, that I didn't do anything that was _too_ mature...those kind of things..."

He didn't expect Baby to understand what he had been saying, but from what he could see, she seemed to get what he was saying.

"So...your just being tested at the moment? Like school?"

"Unfortunately so," he said. "Right now they're just have me doing mediocre tasks to see if there are no programming quirks and that sort of thing..."

"Exactly," he lied "And if I pass this thing, I'll become a part of your circus."

Baby seemed to delight in what he had said. But suddenly, he saw a shadow stretch across her face.

"What if you fail?" She asked

Luckily it wasn't that hard to think of a worse case-scenario.

"If I fail..." He said "One of two things will happen. One, I'll be scrapped or two, they'll reprogram me, which more often than not completely wipes all previous memories."

Maybe what he said was too harsh.

"So y-you'll basically be scooped?" She asked

 _The heck is being scooped?_

Although he didn't exactly know whatever she said was, he had the feeling it was probably the equivalent of being killed or worse, given how she had said it. (The real-life application of context clues)

"Something like that," he answered "Although I have the dark feeling that involves an incinerator."

Baby seemed to be seething with rage or sadness. But whatever it was, she was shaking with her fists clenched.

"I...I won't let them...take away...WHAT LITTLE I HAVE LEFT!"

For once, the small child had _scared_ him. Even more than the poster that appeared to give him the stink-eye in the elevator.

He could see her face plates pulsing with rage. Her eyes tearing up with some kind of liquid.

"W-w-we have a suit!" She blubbered "An old spring-lock one! You look skinny enough to hide in it! We can wind it up so that way you don't get injure! maybe we could hide you in there and when the people stop looking for you We we we..."

The emotional breakdown that she was having was _way_ more than Emmet could have expected. She was on the floor sobbing, as if a child had just come home from a bad day at school only to find her goldfish dead.

"I-i-it's not fair..." She sobbed while she pounded the ground with her fist "T-t-they can't just _do_ that to you! J-j-just cause you fail doesn't mean they h-h-have to w-w-wipe your memo-o-o"

Her breakdown was getting so severe that she seemed to stop making sentences.

 _I should probably do something..._ He thought

He hadn't consoled a temper-tantrum in years, but he moved forward and tried to do the best that he could remember from oh-so-long ago.

"I don't have a choice." He said "And besides, you know what will happen if you try to hide me."

Baby sobbed in his chest.

"Just...let it out."

"What if this _is_ your last night before, you know...they...?" She asked

He thought of an excuse for that, like he had been doing all night.

"If that's the case." He said "Then I want to thank you. For making this the greatest night I ever had."

"W-w-will you come back if your still you?" She asked, her sobbing starting to decrease.

"I promise." He said "If my memory is intact, I _will_ return. And then we'll pick up right where we left off, okay?"

"O-o-okay..." She sniffled.

"Good." He said wiping away her tears with his sleeve "Now don't cry. Nobody likes seeing children crying. And nobody likes to see a sad clown either. For the most part, it makes only them look creepier..."

He saw her let out a silver of a smile. And as tiny as it was, it seemed to make all the difference in the world to her, now that she knew there was hope he would return one day.

"Please come back," She said "I...I had the most amount of fun tonight than I had in a long time."

"I will. And maybe we'll save the world again somehow tomorrow."

He then walked into the elevator shaft. And turned to face the empty control module. Emmet hit the button to the main floor. As the doors to the elevator were closing he could see her waving,

He waved back. And soon, the doors closed and he could hear the _ping!_ As he ascended up the floors and back to the main surface.

 _Man..._ he thought feeling the strong sense of sadness and sorrow _Baby knows how to make people sad...and happy for that matter..._

Something touched him, seeing her wave at him. Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps it was nostalgia of what he should have done long ago. Or just perhaps he had made a child cry, and seeing her have such large faith in his return seemed to be astounding on so many levels.

He started thinking about the child, and how this scene seemed like a cruel repeat of history for him. How oh-so long ago he could have waved at his sister. He could have done something about that day, and maybe then, she wouldn't have been-

 _SKREEEE!_

Suddenly, the elevator came to a jarring halt.

He gripped the handles of the elevator and could hear the cabin shake from the force of stopping it.

 _What the he-_

Suddenly, a new voice was in the elevator.

 _I'm Impressed..._ The female voice said _You handled her well._

A wave of realization, and rather annoyance swept over Emmet as he realized just who he was talking to again.

 _Oh great..._ he thought _It's you again..._

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Sorry that this one took longer. I have been working on a one-shot series that I have been meaning to update for quite some time now. That and this week has been crazier than normal. Also tried to cover a little bit of everything that this series would be about.**

 **I really should scale down, or at least, make it easier on myself.**

 **I think I'll keep this weekly update. I know the updates may seem kind of slow, but I think you guys like quality over quantity (At least, that's what the reviews say...) so I'll keep it at that.**

 **Thanks for reading! Only fav if you** _ **really**_ **like it and write a review only if you feel like it (Nobody is telling you what to do) and as always, I'll see you in the next chapter!**

 **Stay magical my friends!**


	5. Chapter 5- Chewed out

**See! I told you that it would only take about a week. Sort of...**

 **Thanks for all your reviews, and since I don't have any questions to ask, here's your chapter.**

 **Chapter 5- Chewed out.**

He was so close to being free.

He was only an elevator ride away from being gone from this place forever. He was an elevator ride short where he wouldn't have to worry about babies entering his room, ballerinas threatening to kill him if he didn't come up with a good excuse, and the horrible autocorrect of the Artificial Intelligence.

One elevator ride would have set him free from all that.

But that was not the case. The elevator had stopped. Somehow, the disfigured body that he considered a voice had somehow managed to stop his ascend into freedom.

He didn't know if the elevator would break or fall, but he suddenly found himself gripping the nearest sidebar with all his might. While he doubted it would protect him from a fall, it did offer a sense of security.

 _Emmet, I would like to speak to you._ She said

 _Well...did you have to stop the freakin' elevator?_ He asked

 _Of course I did_. She said _You seem to not be taking me seriously anymore._

 _And stopping an elevator makes me take you seriously how?_

She let out a little chuckle.

 _Just a little reminder that I am MORE than just a voice Emmet. And that you should listen to me...most of the time._

 _Point taken._ He answered _What else can you do?_

 _I can do lots of things._ She answered _but unfortunately, I lack the mode needed to do the things that I want._

 _Okay, seriously? Why do you talk that way? Why is it that I can never get a straight answer from you?_

His blight seemed to make her laugh. Maybe it was because she knew something he didn't, or perhaps she just thought his rage was music to her ears.

As soon as she stopped laughing, she gave her response.

 _I'll give a straight answer as soon as you tell me why you are here._

 _Really?_

 _Yes._

 _Okay then..._ He thought thinking of the first reason why he would work in this kind of restaurant where the creepy robots came to life and attempted to kill him.

 _I'm working here because I need the money to pay for my college and other stuff that my scholarship didn't cover._ He answered

He thought that seemed like a valid reason for somebody his age to work anywhere. He actually _did_ need the money to pay for what his scholarships didn't cover and other necessities like food, water, plumbing, electricity, and videogames.

But As valid as his statement was, the strange voice didn't seem to believe him as she started to _laugh_ him.

 _You poor diluted night guard..._ _You know that's not the reason that you are here._

 _Um. Yeah, I think it is._ He answered.

 _No..._ She responded _Don't you know that nobody works the night shift at these places without some reason other than money?_

 _Well maybe I AM just here for money._ He said _Now, can I leave this elevator before I get fired or this elevator breaks?_

He didn't hear much from her. Save for a sad and rather bored sigh.

 _Alright then..._ She said, _How about I ask something else of you._

 _But I'm overstaying my shift..._ He answered figuring that an answer like that would at least do something to get him off the hook in this situation.

 _Your already twenty minutes late, I'm sure that the management won't notice you being a few extra...that and I'm not moving this elevator until I get SOMETHING out of you..._

 _I have the feeling that you're gonna keep he here until I say something._

 _Precisely._

 _Well..._ he sighed _You got me. What do you want?_

 _I want to know if you plan on returning._

That caused him to freeze both his physical and mental being.

 _What do you mean returning?_ He asked

 _What I am asking, is that do you plan to return to this restaurant tomorrow night?_

Emmet let a smirk go across his face. He had wanted to tell management this before he planned to leave, but he figured that the disembodied figure was probably a good practice round.

 _After these past two nights?_ He scoffed _Of course not! Why would I? I've nearly been killed twice! TWICE! In just the past night alone! Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go, leave this death trap, go home, watch some TV and try to forget everything that had happened before I break my neck or die!_

She didn't respond to his rage.

He worried he might have been _too_ harsh on her, usually she had some kind of snooty retort from her, but to his surprise, the only sound that responded to him was the dead silence of the elevator.

He doubted she left her, since he was still stuck in the elevator, so he tried to call out for her.

 _Hello?_

 _You sicken me._ She answered flatly

 _W-what?_ He asked noticing the sudden harshness of her voice

 _I thought you had dignity in the past two days. Looks like I was dead wrong._

He blinked at how sudden and harsh her tone was.

 _D-did I say something that offended you?_

 _YES!_ _YES YOU DID! She roared_ Her voice boomed and echoed in the elevator, making her sound several times louder than she already was.

 _How could you leave?!_ She shrieked _After all you said! How could you!?_

 _What did I say?_

 _Remember Baby?_ She said _you said you would return to her._

He blinked for a few seconds before remembering what he had told to the red-haired child.

 _Oh yeah..._

 _"Oh yeah."_ She mocked _Who do think the you are, the Kool-aid man?_

 _No. But I could REALLY use that wall-busting ability right now..._

 _You know, I have never seen her happier._ She added _And I have been around for a VERY long time now. Far longer than I would have liked to be..._

 _So? She was fine without me. Soon she'll forget about me and go back to performing in front of children, and this whole incident will be behind us..._

 _Dammit Emmet don't you understand!_ She yelled

 _Whoa..._ He answered, taken back by her sudden vulgarity. _Getting a lot of hostility here. Not appreciating it._

 _SHUT UP! I have every right to be hostile!_ She yelled. Her voice booming off of the elevator walls. _I saw her nearly break down into tears when you said you would die! I felt genuine sadness! Which is NOT a pleasant feeling!_

In addition to her rage, Emmet could hear the elevator creak, followed by a sudden drop. He slammed his free hand on the rail with a wave of goosebumps and his nerves standing on end. He gripped the bar as hard as he could, feeling the freefall of an elevator dropping for a few seconds before he felt the recoil of the elevator returning to a stable spot.

 _Hey, I did too._ He related hoping that he could calm her down.

 _What do you know?_ She refuted _All you want is to leave. Why would you ever want to care about her feelings if you did?_

He couldn't come up with any good comebacks to what she said. Which _rarely_ happened. And when it did, he was usually silent. As a result, there was a heavy silence between them. Emmet worried that another elevator drop would occur which would be well...bad.

Several long minutes passed, and Emmet wondered if she had left him for dead in the elevator until he heard her familiar voice.

 _You know...you remind me of HIM a little..._ She pondered.

 _Who?_ He asked

 _A bad man from long ago._ She answered, _in fact, now that I think about it, you two aren't so different from each other..._

 _Can you please tell me who you're talking about?_ He asked

 _...After all, you both lied to children, used a disguise, and left children for dead without any care of their feelings whatsoever._ She continued on ignoring his earlier question.

 _Again, who are you talking about?_

 _...Now that I think about, when he was here, he sounded EXACTLY like you. Not physically of course, but in the sense of how he spoke..._

 _Can I please just get an answer from you?!_

He did not hear her respond for a few moments.

 _Then again... maybe not._ She added _Did you feel happy when you played with Baby?_

 _Of course I did._

Silence once again followed. Emmet was unsure if she was considering killing him or something, but he could only assume that

 _You...you do enjoy Baby?_ She asked her voice starting to lighten up. This still wasn't a huge improvement since she sounded like she was seething.

 _I did._ He answered _I felt younger when I played with her. I felt like it was the good ol' days from long ago._

He doubted his answer would do him any good against a raging spirit. He didn't fell an elevator drop from underneath him, so he stood up, but kept his hand firmly on the handle bar.

 _Well..._ She answered _I am still human...to an extent...And maybe you could really just be here for money..._

 _What does that mean?_

He heard her make a sigh.

 _It means...that I may give you a second chance._ She finished sounding forced.

 _A...second chance?_

 _What are you, a parrot?_ She scorned _Yes, I will give you a second chance._

 _Okay...a second chance at what?_

 _Returning here._ She answered _. A way to prove that you still like this place. Maybe I'm overreacting and you DO like this place, or perhaps you merely want to get out and quit..._

 _Hey, maybe I do want to return._ _Maybe don't._

 _He heard the voice laugh._

 _Now you are the one not giving a straight answer._

He let out a chuckle.

 _You're really persistent whoever you are.._ He told her _._ _I'll have to think about it, but now I may reconsider my earlier decision about quitting..._

He didn't expect her to answer, but he did begin to feel the once heavy air in the room begin to feel lighter and more breathable.

 _Good..._ She answered sounding far more calm than she was earlier _You know...I think I've held you hostage long enough._

Suddenly, the lights of the elevator turned on, and he could hear the _wrr..._ of the elevator engine starting up as the box began to move up.

 _I'm giving you a second chance._ She added _I hope you do return here. And if you don't..._

 _Something bad is going to happen to me?_

 _Probably._ She suggested. _But I can guarantee if you quit, you will feel grief for abandoning a child who had faith in you. And it will not be so easy to forget as you claim it will be._

 _Believe me. I know how it feels._ He said, remembering how he _had_ abandoned a child who once had faith in him. A child, who long ago needed his help more than ever, to which he responded in the normal but worst way any older brother could have done in that situation.

 _May you tell me who did you abandon?_ She asked

 _No. And stop looking at my flashbacks._

He heard the ding of the elevator as it made it up to the top floor. Followed by the low screech of the metal doors opening up to the floor above.

 _We will meet again._ _She said as_ he stepped out, her voice a bit quieter this time. _Even if you return or not..._

 _What do you mean? How will we meet if I quit?_

He didn't hear his phantasmal friend answer, so he asked again.

 _Hello?_ He called out.

No answer came.

 _Guess I'm back to where I started._

He walked out of the elevator and onto the floor. As he walked out he felt as if someone had sent him a rather angry Howler.

 _Enough of that._ He thought _I have to get ready for the day today..._

The room itself was not minuscule, but it was neither large either. There was a front desk where he assumed calls were made, a couple dollies carrying boxes labeled "Transportation box: Very fragile, handle with care." And a hall with a sign labeled "Restroom" that led to a restroom.

He had almost walked out when he saw in the reflective glass of the front door that he still had makeup and magic marker drawn all over his face.

Very quickly, he turned around and went to the bathroom to wash away the makeup and the Magic Marker, leaving a messy sink behind as he then clocked out of the small office and walked out of the rental restaurant to the parking lot. The lot was mainly empty with the exception of his car, the janitor's (Who he never seemed to see) and a few vans used for transporting the rental robots to parties outside of the restaurant. He found his car, a old, slightly beaten up but still useful Mitsubishi SUV that had some trouble starting, but was nonetheless a faithful and reliable car.

He started the engine, hearing it sputter before it roared to life. He pulled out, and drove into the breaking dawn.

 _Now..._ He thought driving to his dorm _To return...or not..._

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Hope you guys didn't get too bored! or upset that I used a cuss word in a k+ story...**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading, and for your helpful reviews. As usual, criticism is welcome. Flaming-is not.**

 **Hope to see you next time!**

 **And until then, stay magical my friends.**


	6. Chapter 6- Anticipation

**Hello everybody, and welcome to this new chapter, which is only a few days late, but eh, it is close enough to a week.**

 **Now, to answer some questions.**

 **James Birdsong** **\- Wow. Now that I re-read the last chapter, I just realized that there** _ **were**_ **a lot of typos. And to be honest, I have no idea how or why that happened. Maybe my eight-year-old laptop is breaking down or maybe I'm just hitting the "Ignore" button too many times. But anyway, thanks for the catch. I fixed it up so now it should look grammatically correct. Thanks for your review m8; your help was much appreciated.**

 **Scarlet Tealwing** **\- Look, I hate to rain on your parade, but I personally don't think I could do your first ship. Not that I don't think it's impossible or bad, it is just that I feel that it would be** _ **really**_ **hard to try and squeeze that into this story. But as for your second idea*Starts laughing evilly*** _ **that**_ **can be arranged. It'll probably just be in the background rather than the focus story, but as I think more and more about the plot, I could try to make it a bit relevant. Hope you understand that your dream will live on (Sort of...)**

 **Guest** **: of course, I'm not done with this story yet. As for if Emmet will return, I think I will let this chapter answer that question.**

 **Now with that out of the way, I give you, your new chapter.**

 **Chapter 6- Anticipation**

For the majority of his day, he did his classes, getting into the groove of his professors lecturing, doing his studies in the library, and not really paying attention only if he felt that it was necessary. It wasn't until at about two thirty when his classes ended that he was even allowed to work on and study whatever he needed to study. And once he had done that, he printed out a sheet, placed it on his books, and lied down on his bed to get some much needed rest.

The paper on the books felt heavier than it should, which wasn't to difficult to imagine, since it was his resignation form to Circus Baby's restaurant and rental service; and if he was going to quit, all he really had to do was drive across town, drop off the form, and he would be on his merry way never to interfere with Circus Baby's pizzeria and rental.

It also wasn't that difficult to pick up and walk with. Yet, whenever he picked up the paper and was about to walk out of his dorm, he could feel the haunting thoughts of the mysterious voice echo through his mind. Her threats though faint, continued to haunt him in the back of his mind. Oftentimes, he would walk back into the dorm and pace around to try and figure what to do next.

He did not have any immediate studies, nor did he have any projects on his computer that he needed to be done.

After a few minutes of lying on his bed, he got off from the side of the bed and looked under it. He pulled out a cardboard box from under his bed labeled: _Game Box_. The box itself, contained several videogames, controllers, and game systems that he thought that he would have to install when he entered college, but upon discovering the university actually had all the systems already installed, he only took his games and left the consoles themselves to begin gathering dust while he completed his studies.

He sighed from both nostalgia of looking at his game systems and just how stupid his idea was on what he was going to do.

 _This minus well be my sign off..._

Emmet was pretty sure that the restaurant had a TV. As a result, he picked out some games from the several systems he brought, mainly picking those which he though wouldn't be too old but still be entertaining, such as Mariokart, Super smash bros, Street fighters, those kind of games.

He also decided that if he was alone, he would bring his laptop to play some Civilization, Kerbal Space Program, or GTA V to pass the time.

Upon loading up his backpack with well over one thousand dollars in electronics, he then moved onto his books, specifically, his advanced Calculus and Language composition studies that weren't due for another week.

 _Minus well get these done._ He thought searching for a pen to start writing _I don't want to be late for tonight..._

 **Somewhere several miles and several hours later: 11:59 PM**

 _Any minute now..._

Circus Baby had been waiting in her room, standing still as she could see the tactician out of her 360 degree vision walk out of the room, turn off the light, and leave both her and her Biddybabs in the dim light.

Although she had enjoyed the day's daily parties and other activities, she found that for the first time in a _very_ long time, she was anxious for that clock to turn over and become 12 AM. And there was very little reason not to, for starters, there were no shocks that she felt last night, which was both a relief from the pain itself and the annoyance where if she would so much as move a little in the night or not be on stage on time, _ZAP!_ She would get shocked.

In addition, she found that she looked forward to seeing Big Brother again. And who could blame her? Baby felt that she had some of the best hours of her life just playing with him and being herself. And with another night of him being here, there was absolutely nothing that she _didn't_ look forward to doing with him!

Yet... there was that haunting feeling. A feeling just on the outskirts of her consciousness that he might, just _might_ , not come back. And that he may have already been scrapped due to failing whatever test he was suppose to do the night before.

She saw the digital clock turn over from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM

Baby stood in her room, still as a statue and started waiting. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, the elevator that let the two technicians go up went up with a hum, and usually, after that, the elevator usually went down with the night guard. But with the guard's recent disappearance and Big Brother's arrival in his place, she found that she started to wait for him more often than the night guard.

She listened for the elevator to go down, but to her surprise, there was no sound of it descending.

 _That's strange..._

She waited a bit longer. Five minutes had passed into the new day, and her brother hadn't made his return appearance.

 _Maybe he's sleepy._ She thought _Don't people his age like to nap?_

That made some sense. Perhaps he was just sleeping, and any minute now, he would wake up, realize he was late, and come running back to her. But until then she waited some more and found herself humming some tunes that she had sung while she did her performances.

" _If you don't know you want to do,_

 _Just sing to Circus Baby and she'll sing back to you!_

 _Are you hungry for something?_

 _Don't worry, I got some ice cream! Just made for you too!_

 _Hey, Do you want a Balloon?_

 _Here, have this one! All for you!_

 _Come on! Let's laugh! Sing! And have fun all day!_

 _Aw come on, don't be shy and stay away, let's go and play!"_

She finished the short song and found that he still didn't show up.

 _Okay...maybe one more time._ She thought

She sang the song to herself, along with a few others that she had been programmed with over and over again until thirty minutes had passed by.

He still didn't show up.

She felt a chill up her spine more unnerving and rattling than any electric shock. She found herself moving on from singing to playing with her red hair and beginning to bite her lower lip, feeling the plastic bend under her teeth.

 _He's late..._ She thought a bit more desperately _He has to be late..._

Ten more minutes passed by. Baby had now stopped playing with her hair and was twirling her thumbs, biting her plastic lip with her metal teeth.

 _No..._ She thought _He couldn't have..._

The possibility of her little known brother being dead started to spread. Very rarely were people forty minutes late to meeting people.

"L-let's wait some more..." She told her Biddybabs.

She waited twenty minutes. yet, her much desired brother was not here. In addition, he was also one hour late.

Chills went down her spine faster and colder than when she made ice cream. Her brother was over an hour late and he _still_ wasn't hear.

Suddenly, instead of thinking of the best, the worst slowly crept through her mind with the dreadful possibility that last night might have been his _last_ night.

 _J...just think of something..._ She told herself. _He's probably late so...I should think of something...I should think of something positive...yeah, that'll help me feel better._

She tried to think of that party, that one at about noon where some kid managed to do a flip to get her attention...and yet that one night with Big Brother seemed to be just _better_ that that memory. Beyond magical, beyond description, and possibly, beyond what baby understood what was a good time. Even if it was just playing with some flashcards and some action figures, there was hardly any unpleasantness. Unlike some of the kids, he didn't looked forced to play with her, in fact, she felt that he was actually having a _good_ time with her.

She thought about how if he didn't show up tonight he had most likely failed that test. One thought led to another, and quickly, she imagined him being scooped, his endoskeleton lying on the floor to be taken apart or destroyed while his plates would be used for a newer endoskeleton that whomever the people who made him thought would the "Better" version that he had failed to live up to.

Needless to say, it quickly boiled over fast.

Baby feel to her elbows and knees, letting out a cry of anguish, anger, and essentially every other nasty emotion that she felt about the sudden loss of her older brother.

"I-I-It's not fair!" She shouted pounding her fist on the ground "H-he didn't d-d-deserve it!"

The upset child pounded the floor several minutes before she felt that hitting a solid linoleum floor was only going crack her plastic skin and not make her feel better about the situation. So, she tried a new tactic. She curled up into a ball, feeling her forehead rest against her knees and tried to think of positive for this situation, which wasn't too hard considering how many songs she sung about getting back up on your feet.

"You've just gotta...look at the brighter side..."

Usually that part of the song was rather peppy and loud compared to the dreary moan that it was. And as silly as it sounded, she really _did_ start thinking about possible outcomes if he _could_ come back.

 _Well..._ She thought _Even if he fails...he could come back..._

She thought about it for a little bit, but as suddenly as it came, it quickly led to a new reality.

 _B-b-but If his memory's gone..._ She thought _Then he won't remember what we did...he won't remember that we played...he won't remember that we..._

For the first time in Baby's memory, She realized that she didn't miss _him_. She was not mourning over his death because she had loved him. (After all, they had just met one night) but rather, she was grieving over the things that he _did._

She was mourning that he had made her happy. She was crying how that no amount of parties (though she was programmed to _love_ ) could ever be as strong as the feelings she had felt that one night. And as silly as it was to play with your older brother, to Baby, who had never played with him to begin with, this was _new_. And a very _good_ kind of new.

She tried to think of something positive to compare, only to find nothing that could rival what he had done for her in that one night. That one night where they just played without a script or any pre-programmed ideas of what she considered fun. Just her, her brother, and all the imagination in that they could come up with from playing cards and action figures.

She realized that in one short night, both she and the world were now robbed of an everything- from his questionable wisdom, his games and jokes- that could have come from Big Brother.

Baby, though sad, didn't let out as uncontrolled of a sorrow as she did last time. She curled up in that shape of a ball, feeling her Biddybabs gently nudge her with their small bodies like a cat or dog. Although they didn't actually speak, she could tell what they were trying to say. And somehow, that made her feel all the more better.

"Y-your right..." She answered to them "I...I shouldn't be sad. At least, not like earlier..."

She lifted her head up from her knees and had wiped her eyes and saw the Biddybabs gaze appear to ask " _And..."_

"And...I shouldn't be sad that he was gone..." She thought letting out a little chuckle "I...I should be glad...glad that he came. Yes, I should be glad that I got to meet him rather than not meet him at all."

She found herself uncurling and sitting on the cold floor, all of those nasty feelings quickly transmuting into something warm and much-needed.

Baby then felt a smooth finger touch her shoulder.

Her hair stood on her end. She had forgotten that she made quite a bit of noise crying over her now deceased brother. She had forgotten that sound could travel through the vents, and by that logic, it was possible that Ballora could have heard _everything_ that she had just said.

Baby gulped. She figured was going to have to do some explaining to do.

"Oh...Ballora..." She sniffled "I-I-I'm sorry f for bothering you. I-I-I've been going through a lot lately and I -"

She turned to face Ballora. Her six-foot appearance usually calming and somewhat relaxing. As expected the biped figure was tall. But what was unexpected was that the biped figure wasn't wearing a tutu, nor did it have closed eyes.

The figure had sunshine blonde hair. And his

"B-b-big brother?!"

He let out a smirk.

"Seriously? Did you _really_ think you were gonna get rid of me _that_ easily?"

Baby blinked a few times and saw he was still there. Still tall, still...him.

It was no circus trick: her older brother was right there in the room.

Immediately, she stood up, and gave him a hug.

"Woah..." He said "Somebody's excited to see me..."

She felt his squishy body and reveled in hearing his voice. And almost instantly, she knew that this wasn't a replacement, after all, only the one she knew could really make a comment like that.

Baby looked up.

"S-s-so you passed?" She asked.

"I'm not dead so...yes. Yes I did.."

She couldn't help but smile. And perhaps, let a few tears fall as well.

"Baby," He said "What did I tell you about crying?"

"S-s-sorry..." She sniffled "It's just..you didn't come at twelve and I thought you were...well..."

"Dead?" He finished

She nodded, letting go of her hug and standing back, seeing Big Brother apparently think it over for some time.

"You know on second thought, I don't blame you for crying," He responded

"You don't?"

He shook his head.

"Personally if I was in your...uh, what are those?"

She looked down at her feet and saw the shoes she was wearing.

"I...I don't know." She answered "Shoes?"

"I'll just assume that their shoes." He said "So, if I was in your shoes, and _I_ lost a sibling, I doubt I would do anything different from you,"

"You wouldn't?"

He shook his head "Of course not."

"Then...why were you late?" She asked

"Oh, just had to pick up some things and do some stuff. Just corporate procedures that's all."

"Really?"

"Why yes." He said "But...now that we got that boring stuff out of the way, is there anything you want to do?"

Baby drew a blank on that one.

"Um...no." She answered "Do you have an idea?"

"Of course I do, if we got six hours to burn, minus well do something with that time."

"So...what are we going to do?"

Once again he let out a smirk. The kind that meant he was either about to do up to nothing _but_ good, or that he was up to _nothing_ good.

"Are you in the mood for Mario Kart?"

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Apologies if Baby's song sounded less like a song. I'm not good at songwriting. Or poetry for that matter.**

 **I am also not entirely sure if Mariokart was a good choice but, that's why me and my brother used to do before he went to college.**

 **Once again, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you in the next chapter, bye!**


	7. Chapter 7- Game night

**Chapter 7- Game night.**

Getting the gang together to play for the most part went surprisingly well.

At least, better than Emmet would expect to get five robots to play MarioKart.

After plugging in the Wii system, he and Baby went to find the racers. Both Funtime animatronics were eager to join, not only to escape the boredom but also add a change in atmosphere to the usually solemn night at the restaurant and rental store.

"Besides," The pirate vixen added "It'll add a nice feather in me cap beatin' this bear at this Mariokart thingy,"

Ballora however took a bit more convincing. She kept insisting that she had to continue practicing her standard (but very pretty) dance routine.

"While I would like to join your game Big Brother, I must perfect my dance routines. And...what is everybody doing in my room!? Do you _want_ the night guard to electrocute us because we are out of our rooms?"

"Uh...Ballora...you're aware that there _is_ no night guard here?" Emmet said.

She came to a sudden stop from her lazy, yet beautiful, rotation with her purple eyelids snapped open.

"What?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah...for some reason there isn't here." Freddy added "I mean. It's like he just fell off of the face of the earth or something..."

Ballora looked around.

"Are you certain?"

"Yep," He lied. "Nobody here to tell you not to join. Nobody here to give you electric shocks..."

He let his words sink into her for a little bit.

"Well then..." She answered "Never mind what I had said earlier, I would like to play with you while the guard is absent."

"Nice," He said "Now, to the control module!"

After everybody had managed to get through the vent, Emmet gave them all controllers. He had brought four remote controls for the occasion; three of them were pro controllers that were for the most part rather comfortable while the last one was a standard Wii remote.

Emmet decided to take one for the team and pick a Wii remote while everybody had a remote control.

When he had handed Freddy his controller, he noticed how he only had one hand while his right was holding Bon Bon.

"Um...how are you gonna control you car?" He asked

"Don't worry. Bon-Bon will help, right?"

"Sure. After all, I am your _right hand man_..."

After that bad joke, he decided to start the start the game. The title screen lit up, and it was as if somebody used a solar flare, causing _everybody_ to squint and occasionally hiss like vampires or other supernatural creatures from the unnatural brightness of the intro screen.

"Hang on...I can dim the screen..." He said feeling for the remote and dimming the screen to a comfortable level that everybody could see.

"Thank you Emmet." Ballora thanked rubbing her eyes "While I do not think I could not race with the screen that bright, I do feel that it would be a rather strong impediment."

"Same here...now, let's start!"

He had picked multi-player race, but before he could advance to any sort of menu, a pop-appeared on the T.V.

 _Player 1 not detected_

He sighed. No wonder he didn't use this remote.

After getting some batteries, the gang was all set to play. While the control room appeared the best place to play (More like the only place, since it was the only one Emmet knew that had a T.V.)Spacing quickly became an issue since it was designed to hold a few people, and Emmet was trying to fit four animatronics and him in the room.

At first, he tried fitting everybody across the room from the window to Ballora's room to Vulpes's room, which only caused everybody complaining how they felt cramped and squished in Emmet's case.

So, he moved to plan B: instead lining up vertically or horizontally, he figured he could fit everybody by making them line up _diagonally_ from the bottom left corner of module to the top left corner. Emmet also arranged them with Funtime Freddy being on the bottom left corner. Followed by Ballora, himself, Baby, and Vulpes at the top left corner near her room.

He intentionally kept the two Funtime Animatronics on the farthest end of the room so they couldn't physically hurt each other. But despite the fact that Vulpes and Freddy couldn't physically hurt each other, it didn't mean that they couldn't yell whatever insults they wanted across the room. Which was why he had also placed the two most (and only) adult-like figures he could find next to them. That way, if any argument did happen, he could rely on Ballora and Baby to try and calm them down without him having to intervene.

"I _am_ using your proper name! You're just too stubborn to accept it!" Freddy retorted.

Vulpes then responded by sticking out her tongue, to which Freddy countered by blowing a raspberry.

"Can we just start the race already?" Baby asked impatiently, tapping her foot loud enough for the two Funtime animatronics and giving a nasty glare with her bright green eyes that Emmet didn't think could come from Baby.

"Yep." Freddy stammered "Let's put aside our differences, okay?"

"Aye mate," Vulpes hastily agreed.

He was taken aback by how these two quarreling robots had come to settle on Baby's intimidation. And considering from how Emmet knew them from these past nights and how they never could agree on anything, he could only imagine just what horrors occurred when Baby moved past the intimidation stage with those dark-evil eyes...

"Oookay then..." Emmet interjected, hoping to add a much more positive note. "Moving on..."

The first thing that they all did was character selection. Which seemed to go...fine. At least, what Emmet considered fine since nobody seemed to call anybody's selection lame or stupid. He chose Waluigi as his character, followed by Ballora picking Rosalina and Baby selecting Shy Guy (She let out an "Aww..." when she first saw him,). Funtime Freddy decided on Wario, and Vulpes settled on Yoshi.

Immediately after everybody had picked their characters, the screen split into five parts (Technically 8. But there were five parts that were active) and read _Car customization_ on top of each.

"Wait, you can pick how it looks?" Baby asked

"Yeah. Why?"

Suddenly, a smile grew on her already grinning face.

"Oh...nothing..." She said

He knew from personal experience that the "nothing" was probably something. And considering how passively she had said that word, she seemed to be hiding something in her head.

He moved on, and then thought about _his_ car. Luckily, he knew the design that he had used since he had last played, so he went for his previous design: the Flame rider with slim wheels. Not only offering

He then looked over to Ballora's screen to see that she went with a sports bike with standard wheels. And Baby...

He saw from her screen that she might have gotten _a_ _little_ too carried away with the whole "Design your own car" idea, since she had picked a cat cruiser with _gigantic_ cushion wheels.

He couldn't help but let out a little snicker.

"What? I think he's cute like that!" She said

"You do whatever you want Baby, it's your car...

Freddy ended up going for raw speed by getting a jet bike and cyber-slick wheels.(He could only imagine how difficult it would have to be to steer that thing...) And Vulpes built her car to look like some sort of pirate ship with wooden wheels and a pirate-ship like frame.

After everybody had picked their cars, the game then went on to stage selection. He figured that they could use an easy stage, and Doughnut plains seemed easy enough.

"Is everybody ready?" He asked

"Of course lad!"

"I think we can handle a normal course," Freddy said.

Emmet raised an eyebrow

"You sure you don't need a tutorial?" He asked

"The game doesn't look that hard." Freddy answered "I think we can do well."

"Alright then..." Emmet said "Any last questions?"

"The 'B' button is the break, right?" Baby asked

"Yes," He answered

"Good..." She said "Just needed to remember that's all.

"I am ready." Ballora added

"Ready to smoke your tail Foxy!"

"If yer going to insult me lad, use me proper name ye half-witted-"

Vulpes stopped once the screen changed from stages to the starting line of Doughnut plains with their cars lined up.

Nobody made a noise as the camera adjusted to back of the racers.

"If you rev your engine at the right time, you get a boost," Emmet added

Nobody answered him.

 _Okay then..._

Then, the countdown began.

 _3..._

 _2..._

 _1..._

 _START!_

From the very poor audio quality speakers in the office, he heard the starting siren, followed by the sound of engines blazing ahead or flaming out.

Emmet managed to time his engine right and gained a substantial lead. After a good thirty seconds, he didn't see any of the robots in front of him.

 _I guess they aren't that good..._

He pressed a button to look back and to his surprise he and he found _Baby_ in her cat cruiser and cushion wheels close behind him.

 _Whoa!_ _You're closer than I thought you would be!_

Yet the circus baby stuck on like a mustard stain.

"Hey, Freddy was right! This isn't so bad!" Baby said as they approached the lap.

"Uh Baby...I was wrong." Freddy said

"Why were you? Oh..."

As they managed to complete the lap, Emmet saw that Funtime Foxy and Freddy managed the cross the finish line too...except they were driving in the _opposite_ direction.

Emmet looked back and saw a shadow of humiliation on Freddy's usually proud grin upon realizing what he had done wrong.

"I think we may need a tutorial." Freddy commented turning a shade of red.

"I'd be admittin' to ye opinion as well..." Vulpes added turning red as well.

"Alright then..." Emmet said "I guess a few practice races can't hurt..."

 **Several practice races later.**

"Well...that took longer than I thought...but now that nobody's driving the wrong way, is everybody ready?"

"I'd be more prepared now than when ye'd last encountered me matey!"

"Sure, what she said."

"Alright then...let's start..."

He himself didn't really care much about the courses so he picked the random button and to his luck...it landed on Rainbow Road.

He let out a groan. Of _all_ the courses that it could have _possibly_ been, why did it have to be Rainbow Road!?

"Why are you upset?" Freddy asked "This course doesn't look too bad,"

"I agree," Ballora added "I do not see anything incriminating about this race track."

"It looks pretty!" Baby said.

"I don't really know why ye'd be upset lad, everybody seemed to be likin' this course,"

"Trust me," He said as the screen loaded "You'll hate it soon enough."

He could hear the tapping of buttons, followed by the game's background music as he saw the starting line appear on the rainbow covered track.

Like the practice races before, nobody made any noise.

Then the countdown began.

 _3..._

 _2..._

 _1..._

 _START!_

The engines roared, and the result was...what he expected would happen on Rainbow Road.

Everybody started out with a fairly strong boost, causing a tight group to form with Emmet in the lead.

The beginning of Rainbow road was easy enough, but as the course carried on, he saw Ballora and Freddy to for a speed boost near the outside curve, only to fall off of the edge.

"Eh...that was inevitable," Freddy said. "I'll be back."

The second turn came along, a steep turn which caused Emmet himself to hold his breath as he saw the rear wheel of his tri-speeder slide off the rainbow track, but luckily, he had boosted at the last second, causing him to get back on.

Baby followed him but a few tenths of a second behind.

"Erg!" Ballora grunted as she fell off of the edge of the track. "Now I see why you find this course infuriating!"

"Can I please stop falling off of the track for one second?" Freddy moaned as he fell too.

"Yes! Yes! I'd didn't fall!" Foxy cried as she successfully maneuvered both the boost _and_ turn without plunging off of the track, passing both Ballora and Freddy and gaining ground on Emmet and Baby.

While that happened, Emmet focused on breaking away Baby. And despite how ridiculous as her car looked, she was somehow managing to keep up with him.

 _Gotta get her off of my tail..._

He made more aggressive moves, such as cutting turns and not drifting to get full boost. Sure enough, Baby followed, copying every _exact_ movement he did with the exception of them being slower.

 _Alright then...how about this?_

He tried a risky jump. And just like before, Baby followed seconds later. This time however, she was backed up by the boost of Super mushroom after the jump, narrowing the gap between him and her.

 _How is she still keeping up with me?!_

"Uh...Not to sound mean, but how'd you get so good?" he asked trying to cut a turn to gain a lead.

"I don't really know," She answered as continued to endeavor for first "I just seem to be copying-"

"Sup landlubbers!"

Suddenly, behind him he saw Vulpes boost ahead of them with flames coming out her pirate ship, bumping him and Baby out of her way while she gained a clear lead ahead of them.

Emmet started to feel long-lost skills begin to return. He made a sharp turn, Baby quickly following (He even glanced over at her controller to see that one eye was focused on the T.V. while the other was focused on his controller).

A he neared the last major bend, he saw Ballora and Freddy suddenly encroached on top of him, quickly bypassing the stiff competition between him and Baby.

He didn't have any items to catch the pirate.

 _Maybe I can cut this turn..._

As the nose of his vehicle began to peak over the curve, he released the boost he had gained from drifting, gaining some ground on her.

Unfortunately, that was not enough to catch up to Vulpes, as she was already jumping on a ramp to the end of the finish line.

"Yes!" she cried as only a dead straightaway remained of the race "I'd finally be a winner! I'd be a-"

Suddenly, something appeared on her part of the screen. It was blue, spiked, winged, and circling around Vulpes's car.

Emmet let out a literal (But small) gasp.

He knew what this was. It was the destroyer of leads, the wrecker of friendships, and the ultimate way for somebody to ruin any racer's day.

It was...the Blue shell.

"What in Davy Jones locker is-"

The blue shell the crashed into her ship, and caused a great bright blue explosion in the process.

He saw her eyes snap and jaw hang open as her racer fell and all the other racers passed her (Emmet included.)

He let out a silent "yes!" as he crossed the finish line in first.

"Dang it!" Baby added, coming in a few hundredths of a second behind Emmet. "Almost had you..."

"Not bad," Ballora said, zooming past the finish line a few seconds behind Baby. "Not bad at all."

"Whoa! Hey guys! You can fly over finish line!" Freddy said as his car glided over the finish line.

Vulpes made no comment as she crossed the finish line. Just a face contorted face like she had tasted or licked a lemon.

"Uh...buddy..." Freddy said "Are you okay-"

"I HAD THAT!" She yelled "I HAD THE LEAD!"

Her yell seemed to command more silence than one of Ballora's intentional coughs or one of Baby's glares.

"That'd stupid blue shell!" She yelled "Where'd it come from!?"

There was only the hum to answer the angry pirate's question was the buzz of the overhead lights.

But a few seconds later, a new sound came into the mix: a deep chuckle.

Emmet saw from one side of the room Freddy leaning forward from the diagonal line.

"Hey Foxy." Freddy said.

"What?"

"Get this,"

"What?"

"You're gonna _love_ this,"

"What laddie!?" She snapped

Freddy chuckled.

"Remember when you said you didn't know where the blue shell came from?"

"Yea..." She said through gritted teeth

"Well...before I entered the turn, I got a blue shell."

Suddenly, her yellow eyes darted at Funtime Freddy.

"THATE'D BE YOU?!"

"In my defense, I thought it would work like a normal shell or something that I could use on Ballora!" He said laughing a bit more. "I didn't know it would do _that_!"

Emmet saw Vulpes shake a little. He saw her take a deep breath as she suddenly seemed to suddenly relax and release all the tension in a great wheeze. She then gently put the remote controller on the desk, broke out from the line, and began to crawl into her vent.

"Foxy?" Freddy asked. "Where are you going?"

"I'd be done for tonight." She said.

Nobody seemed to have stopped her as he then heard the vent door slam shut and echo through the empty control room.

"Um...okay then..." Baby said "Anybody up for round two?"

Nobody responded until a familiar bear spoke up.

"I...should talk to Foxy," Freddy said "You know, try and lessen up tensions around here."

Nobody objected to him.

"Okay then...I guess I'll see you later...provided she doesn't kill me..."

Nobody objected to what he was doing. And likewise, he then saw the white bear go into the vent that Vulpes had gone into.

"All right then..." Baby continued "Ballora, are you up for another round?"

The ballerina sighed. "I would like to Baby, but I feel that it is perhaps best if I play when tensions have died down."

"What do you- Oh..." She realized "I...I see what you mean..."

"Thank you for understanding." She curtsied as she too placed the remote control on the table "I must admit it though, I did enjoy this game and I hope we can someday play again,"

"Sure thing..."

And just like Freddy and Vulpes earlier, she crawled out of the module through the vent to her room. And a few seconds later, the sound of _Crumbling Dreams_ was added to the hum of the room.

Only Emmet and Baby remained in the once crowded space.

"So...It's you and me now is it?" He asked

"Yep," She assured him "Just us,"

Emmet sighed. He had planned to play for most of the night, but the hour had barely passed one twenty, leaving well over four hours of nothing to do.

"What have I done..." he questioned placing his hand on his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Baby asked

"I mean, I thought everybody would like this game...I guess I was wrong."

He heard Baby's slightly clunky footsteps approach him.

"Hey, I liked it," Baby said "And aside from Rainbow Road, the other courses were pretty fun,"

"I don't know Baby...Vulpes just rage quitted and caused everybody to leave. I don't think people like this game..."

One again the buzz of the background was the only noise heard a few heavy seconds.

"I don't think that's true," She said "When I saw her, I thought she looked pretty happy racing."

"Really?"

"Yeah...I think she's just upset that she got hit by that blue shell thingy at the end."

While hecouldn't exactly confirm that she _was_ having fun, it did make him feel better about tonight. One thought led to another, and soon, he was smiling.

 _Yeah...once tensions cool down..._

Then maybe, just like Ballora said, they could come together once the tensions died down.

Without the blue shell, of course.

"Yeah...now that I think about she did sound happy when she did race." He rambled "And...I guess things could have been worse. I could have picked Smash bros or something. Now that game _really_ causes people to get mad..."

The two sat in the control module, only hearing the faint sound of _Crumbling Dreams_ and the buzz of electric lights overhead.

"Baby, can you make me a reminder," He said trying to break the ice.

"Sure,"

"Next time we play Mariokart, I'm disabling the Blue Shell function. Cause let's be honest, that item is just overpowered."

Baby let out a chuckle.

"Yeah, I'll do that,"

The room once again faded back into the way it was before, the faint sound of Ballora's music coupled with the buzz and _wrr_ of machinery

"I don't think anybody's returning," Emmet said

"Same here," Baby sighed "So...what are we going to do for the next four hours?"

"I don't really know," He answered standing up "Since I'm doing nothing, I guess I can just watch YouTube-"

"Come again?" she asked

"YouTube," He answered "You know world's most popular video website..."

Emmet saw Baby blink and give a confused look.

"You've never heard of YouTube?"

She shook her head. "I can't say that I have."

"Alright then..." He said pulling out his laptop "Baby, I'm glad you stayed here with me,"

"Uh...why?"

"Because tonight, I will show you the wonders of...YouTube,"

Although the red-haired child never heard of the site, her green eyes sparkled with wonder.

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said loading up the main page "Now...what videos should we watch..."

"Can we watch cat videos please please!?I remember from T.V those cats were soooooo cute!"

While he originally wanted to watch some Markiplier or Jacksepticeye for anything new, he figured he could sacrifice his wants for a little bit to satisfy Baby's.

"Sure. Let's go with that."

He then looked up "cat videos," in the search bar, and felt like he was back in the early days of YouTube.

 **End of Chapter.**

 **As of this moment, I am officially on winter break! Aside from a few essays, I should be able to update faster. (By faster I mean twice a week provided that nothing interferes...)**

 **Now, the reason this chapter took longer than a week was because I re-wrote it some two or three times (I don't know why, but whenever I looked at it I felt that it was just...bleh) And even now, I still feel like I'm doing something wrong in this chapter...**

 **Anyways, that's enough of me talking I hope you enjoyed both this chapter and Christmas break if you are on one, and if you aren't, you're almost there!**

 **Until next time,**

 **Stay magical my friends.**


	8. Chapter 8- Funtime (Sort of)

**Professor Oak (Guest): I'm a boy. Sorry to make that anti-climatic.**

 **Chapter 8- Funtime (Sort of...)**

Crawling through a vent wasn't anything new to him.

Funtime Freddy had gone down the vent to Funtime Foxy's room before. In fact, he was supposed to _share_ the room with his Funtime counterpart when they would perform on stage whenever they weren't rented out to some other location. But like so many things that change when the clock strikes twelve, the room ownership for him changed from a "we" to a "Funtime Foxy," He didn't know how or why, but when the hour came, she wanted him out of the room and would often be more hostile than he expected her to be. And since he didn't want to start a fight, he was often forced to go into weird places like the vents, the supply closet, and the breaker room to try and wait out the room.

Freddy sighed as he inched his pudgy body through the vents. He and Foxy were once the bests of friends. Almost inseparable after they had awoken. But...what happened? Why did she hate him so much? Sure, he might of made fun of her a _little_ bit, but he doubted that it was enough to make her hate his insides and usually empty storage tank.

He felt a tight squeeze of the ventilation and his main drive motor, which was as close as a heart he could get to, as he to and Funtime Foxy's room. While laborious, it wasn't long before he could see the grates of the vent.

Past that, he could see the vixen herself sitting on the edge of the stage, her tail slowly swaying back and forth while she gazed at a wall.

The sheer sight of her sent some chills down his endoskeleton.

 _I...I don't know anymore..._

Freddy suddenly felt his limbs turn into Jell-o and saw that he was starting to shake from nervousness.

 _That's it._ He thought _I need somebody to consult this over..._

Then again, it was hard to consult to anybody since he was all alone in a mental vent.

 _Wait a sec..._

He moved his arm with much difficulty up to the vent where Bon Bon was right where he needed him to be.

"Hello Freddy!" Bon Bon greeted

"Hi Bon Bon," he said "Look, I need your opinion on something,"

"Sure, ask away!"

"Do you think I should go into Foxy's room and apologize for launching a blue shell?" He asked the puppet

He saw his green eyes look away, obviously thinking the situation over, before his eyes returned to his gaze.

"Normally I would say no," The hand puppet answered

The large bear sighed. He could only imagine how strange it would feel to crawl through an air vent backwards.

"...but," The bunny continued "Tonight, I feel that perhaps you can settle some troubles that you two have,"

"Really?" He asked taken back by how polite Bon Bon was compared to the puppet usually insulted Freddy in some sort of way.

"Yeah!" He said raising his small arms "And besides, if you fail, it's not like she'll hate you anymore than she does already,"

 _And there's the insult..._ he thought.

"Gee. That makes me feel so much better about this situation..."

Freddy looked at the vent, then back at the bunny with its hopeful and optimistic gaze. The hand puppet didn't say anything, except a wave-like gesture with his hands to the sitting vixen.

He thought about what he was going to say and briefly, and then came up with a strategy to quickly state his apologies and leave before he got her too angry.

 _Go in. Say you're sorry. Get out. Go in, say you're sorry, get out..._

Funtime Freddy found himself repeating the mantra several time as he then opened the vent to their room.

He tried to be quiet with the vent, but was only able to reduce the sound of removing the vent to a minor _Clang!_ As the grate fell forward and landed on the linoleum floor with several more _CLANK CLANK CLACKS!_

He saw her ears perk up and her tail stop moving from the sudden ventilation sound.

 _Great...now she knows I'm here..._

Freddy stayed deathly still in his vent, silently muttering that she didn't turn around.

 _Wait...what am I doing? She already knows I'm here. Minus well not lie about it..._

Freddy then crawled out of the vent, careful not to make too much unneeded noise until he stood at full height outside of the vent.

"S-sorry about that," he apologized.

Her once perked up ears then flattened out, and her large bushy tail then returned to its normal swaying motion with his reassurance of who he was.

 _You're here..._ He told himself _Tell her what you want and get out before she skins you._

"Um...I bet you're probably wondering what I'm doing in here..."

She didn't respond. Freddy found himself curling in his plastic lip trying to speak some words to the white vixen.

"I...Uh...I want you to know that I'm sorry about using that blue shell and I'll try not to use it if I ever get it again."

She continued to be unresponsive. Her tail swaying while she continued to look at the wall.

"I take it from your silence that you're saying yes?"

No response.

"C-can I please get an answer from you?"

Nothing.

"Please Foxy, I need to-"

"Foxy?" She finally answered, her voice shattering the tension like a rock being thrown at glass. "Did ye just call me Foxy?"

 _Crud..._

"Futime-I mean- Vueles- I mean- Vulpes! Yes Vulpes! I-Uh, I want to apologize!" he stammered

The vixen then stood up from the edge of the stage and turned around. Although she was four inches shorter than him and well over twenty feet away from him, Freddy felt like he was gazing at the icy glare and the hot breath of a monster several feet taller than him and a few inches in front of him.

Despite her intimidation, she didn't appear willing to attack him. At least, she stood a good deal away from him and didn't dash at him.

Freddy took this as a token of hope and recomposed himself to keep talking.

"I-I-uh, I'm sorry about what happened earlier and...I want you to know that I didn't mean any –Uh- harm. I-I really didn't know what I was doing a-and I hope that you don't stay too angry forever over this whole blue shell thing!"

She continued to stay at least twenty feet away from with her golden spears for eyes piercing his soul.

"And, uh, sorry for calling you Foxy. I know how much you hate it and I don't know why, but I'll try to call you by a different name..."

She didn't make any commentary or noise.

"So...is that a yes?"

"Is that'd all ye be here for?" She snapped.

"Y-yes..." He stammered

She sighed as she then turned around again.

"By all means then ye'd be forgivn' lad, now, get out of me room."

He stood there for a few minutes, processing the recent events.

 _Is...is that it?_ He thought _doesn't this seem a little...I don't know, too easy?_

He was unnerved by her sudden forgiveness yet blatant harshness.

"Um...okay then...is that all?" He asked

"This isn't some commercial where there'd be more if ye call now." She answered "So leave."

Freddy didn't like how she was so hostile. It was so unlike her. He remembered her being nice. At least, he remembered that she didn't treat him like garbage.

 _Do I feel...pity?_ He thought. Feeling at least some unknown obligation to help her, or at least, understand why she was so hostile. _I mean, I am her counterpart. I should feel at least some concern for her..._

"Fo-I mean, Vulpes, I have another question for you,"

"Lad, ye said ye'd only have one and that'd be over the blue shell." She snapped

"Well I have another one," Freddy asked

She didn't make any noise, just the clicks of her gears as she turned her canine snout to face him. Once their eyes met, she made some sort of snort from disgust or possibly from caving in.

"Fine. But make yer question quick,"

The blue bunny didn't seem to be opposing him in any way, and that seemed good enough for Freddy

"Vulpes," he said, speaking slowly since he wasn't calling her Foxy or Funtime Foxy

"What lad?"

"Do you hate me?" He asked.

The vixen then blinked and snapped open her eyes like she had been punched.

"Hate ye?"

"Yes." He said "Do you _hate_ me,"

She seemed to chuckle.

"Look laddie, I'd don't hate ye-"

"Really?"

"Of course not lad," She said "Sure, we'd not see eye to eye occasionally, but that don't mean I _hate_ ye,"

He found it hard to

"Then...what do I do to make you hate me?"

"Uggg..." She groaned "Why can't you let me be lad?"

"Cause you're angry over something I'm doing. And as your counterpart and a Funtime Animatronic it's my job to make sure you're-"

"-Havin' a fun time here at this here' party, yeah, I got it lad." She interrupted. Quoting a basic line of programming about the duties of a Funtime animatronics.

"Then can you _please_ tell me what you are so upset about!" He asked "You can't bottle it in there forever, so you minus well spit it out while you can handle it!"

She then looked away and sat on the stage, bringing her knees up to her snout and her tail wrapping around her. Suddenly, the once intimidating vixen suddenly seemed like a worn out fur jacket.

 _Oh no..._ Freddy thought _Did I..._

He sighed. He had just broken her. Not literally, but he had done something to her.

 _This was a mistake...I should get going before I hurt her some more..._

He was then about to turn around until he felt her hand grab his shoulder.

"Wait Funtime Freddy..." She asked "C-can ye stay?"

"Stay?"

"Y-yes lad..." She said "I...I want to talk 'bout it."

"Really? I mean, you shouldn't do it because of me..."

"I do lad and perhaps...it'd be better that I'd be gettin' this off of me chest."

She then sat down on the stage, followed by Freddy who was still a bit cautious about this thing.

"I...I want to tell ye why I'd be angry." She said

He then turned back and sat next to her on the stage.

"Alright then...care to tell why?"

The usually brave vixen then appeared to take a deep, unneeded breath, as if she was about to deliver a major speech.

"Funtime Freddy," She said "Do ye hear the children after ye perform?"

"What?"

"Do ye have cotton in yer ears? I said do ye year the children talk about ye after they perform?"

"Um...Occasionally." He answered "They seem happy. Only one or two out of twenty or fifteen seem unhappy or slightly scared, but I think that's good..."

Her snout sunk lower into her knees. And suddenly, Freddy knew what was wrong with her.

"Oh no...did you overhear some kids say they hate you?"

She shook her head, causing him to be in a blank slate.

"Then what's upsetting you? Cause I have no idea why you're upset."

She then buried her snout even lower into her legs, so much that her knees were her eyebrows were.

"I...I've been listening to the children after our performances and occasionally when I'd perform alone..." She said "And...T-the lads and lassies are talking 'bout me all right..."

"I don't see what's the problem," He said

She then looked up to Freddy.

"The problem is lad that I hear everybody talk 'bout how I'd improve from before. How I'd be to not as scary I'd used to be..."

He listened to her story. "Continue,"

"So...I'd be a'thinkin' 'bout what the lads said and...I'd realized that I'd...I'd..."

"You're what Foxy?"

She turned around, her eyes flared with rage.

 _"I'D. NOT. !"_ She yelled.

He flinched from her sudden loudness.

"But...you're F-f-funtime Foxy..." he stammered.

"Exactly! And that'd be the problem Freddy!"

"You're...name?" he guessed

"Yes!" She said

"Wait...really?" He asked in disbelief

"Look lad, Foxy isn't me name! It'd be the name of _another_ robot that'd be a'lookin' like me!"

Freddy stood there blankly his eyes a bit open and his mouth making a silent _Oh..._

"But...you're Foxy..." he said. "It even says so in your official name."

She sighed as she then put her fingers between her eyes.

"Look Freddy, I am Foxy, but at ye same time I'm not," She answered

"How?"

"Freddy...I looked online when the Night Guard left and looked up me name...I saw that I'd be another counterpart of an old robot named _Foxy_."

"Oh..." He realized, putting two and two together. "Where'd you figure this out?"

"There'd be this thing called the internet." She said "Ye know, kind of important when ye need to find something..."

Freddy sat back, processing the thoughts in his microchips about what she said.

"So...You're upset because...people are critiquing you to an older robot because you're a newer version of some old robot?"

She nodded with her eyelids appearing heavy on her usually energetic eyes.

"I don't understand, isn't that goo-"

"Freddy!" She yelled "Don't ye understand! I'd not be me own person!" She yelled

He stepped back, seeing a flash of rage in her eyes.

"Because of that...that... _Foxy,_ I don't _have_ an identity!" She ranted "And from what I'd overhear, nobody sees me as Funtime Foxy. Nobody _wants_ to see Funtime Foxy."

Freddy had no response

"I-It broke what little of me heart, or whatever this thing in me chest is, when I'd realize that everybody only saw me as Foxy 2.0 instead of Funtime Foxy,"

She then sat back down and sunk her snout back into her legs.

"And because of that...I'd never be able to do something that can't be compared to by that stupid fox! I'd be sick of it! I can't do anything!"

She then sat down and let out a great heave with her head hunched over like a crane. Freddy took a few cautious scoots away, mainly since he didn't want to be turned into a punching bag if she turned around and took her rage on him.

 _Wow..._ He thought _I...I could have never guessed..._

 _Are you sure?_ A light voice asked

 _Who's that?!_ He shouted mentally

 _Quiet down Freddy! I'm on you're right hand._

He looked to his right hand and saw that Bon Bon was grinning and slightly laughing a little.

 _Bon Bon! What are you doing here?!_

 _Hey, we share the same body. So technically, we share the same thoughts._

 _Oh..._ he thought seeing him connected to his arm. _Forgot that little detail._

 _Yeah..._

 _Just out of curiosity Bon Bon, do you have any ideas for this situation?_

The blue hand puppet looked around before his eyes returned to his gaze.

 _Well, the problem is that she can't do anything that is compared to whoever Foxy is, right?_

 _Yes._

 _Well then, where does he uncontested?_

 _Come again?_

 _That Foxy thing was a pirate, yes?_

 _Of course he was. If she's his counterpart, he obviously has to be a pirate_

 _Right, and we're in the circus, right?_

 _Yes._

 _So we need to think what would somebody in the circus do, but a pirate NOT do?_

Freddy stood there blankly, processing the puppet's statement.

 _Freddy?_ Bon Bon asked _Are you okay..._

 _That's...that's brilliant Bon Bon!_ He said

 _Really?!_

 _Yes! That actually might just do it! In fact, I'll try to get her to understand that..._

He then looked back to his Funtime counterpart, and saw her hunched over like a wilting flower.

 _Okay..._ He thought thinking Bon Bon's idea in his head _let's do this..._

"Hey Vulpes," he asked "I have to ask you something,"

"Yea lad?"

"We're in a circus themed place, correct?"

"Are ye blind? Of course we'd be!"

"Alright then..." he said "So, if we're circus robots, why are you bound by being a pirate?"

Foxy then lifted her head from her legs and looked at Freddy.

"What are ye sayin' lad?"

"What I'm saying is we need to blow these people away with something so different and _so_ crazy, that they can't possibly compare you to Foxy,"

He didn't see her react in a flame of rage at the mention, so he that as a sign that she was listening to him.

"And how just how are we'd be doin' that if that Foxy shank has already done everythin'?"

Freddy let out a chuckle.

"You sure he's done everything?"

"If he didn't I wouldn't be angry would I?"

Freddy tried to hold his composure and be brave in the face of the angry vixen.

"R-right..." he said trying to continue the train of thought "Can I ask you something else?"

"What lad?!"

"There are no rules to being a pirate, right?"

"What rules?"

"My thoughts exactly," He said "So if there are no rules to being a pirate, and you're in a circus themed restaurant, why don't you try combining the two?"

She appeared unimpressed with what he had said, but a few seconds later, her once half-opened eyes gradually opened up to full eyes filled with wonder and possibility.

"Are...are ye sayin' I should be part of ye circus _and_ a pirate?"

"I don't see any rules saying _not_ for you to be a party pirate!"

And then a wicked grin grew on her face.

 _Oh my...did I create a monster?_ He feared.

 _Nah..._ He countered himself _she's controlled. I doubt she'll do anything too crazy..._

"Why...why didn't I think of that before?" She asked as she then started pacing around, her hands shaking as if she stood in a blizzard.

"Better late than ever I'll say!"

He chuckled at his own statement, but she didn't respond with him. Instead, He saw her look up to a blank and rather dull part of the ceiling

"Can you see a pirate drop on stage on a trapeze?"

Suddenly, Freddy saw the possibility that he _did_ create a monster grow greatly.

"No...not at all..." He lied "I mean, you could do a Tarzan scream and drop on the stage, but that sounds a little dangerous..."

A devious face suddenly shadowed her face. And just faintly, Freddy thought he could make out the faint _MWA-HAHAHAHA_ of an evil laugh under her breath.

"Ye know Freddy," She said "that is the most useful and badass idea I've heard come out of yer noggin'."

"But...are you going to be safe?" He asked

"I'd be made of metal and state of ye art shock of absorbers." She said, knocking on her shins and thighs like she was the Tin man "I think a three foot drop won't kill me.

"Okay then... I just wanna ask you something,"

"Yea?"

"Are we friends again?"

Once again, that devious grin shadowed over her face.

"If we'd not be friends, how could we be standin' in ye same room without beatin' the barnacles out of each other?"

"That is a good point..." he said "But it's good to be back with you Foxy,"

"Hug?" He said extending his arms around her.

"Steady there Freddy," She said lowering his arms "I'd said we're friends. I'd don't think we'd be ready for _huggin'_ yet,"

"R-right..." He admitted, turning a shade red from embarrassment and his heated circuits. "Sorry..."

"Don't worry lad, we'll get there," she encouraged while patted his back.

"Thanks...and speaking of hugging, should we try to interact with the audience again?" she suggested changing topics.

He saw for a moment, a flash of fear in her eyes.

"Sure..." She answered. "Maybe not _directly_ but at least a wee bit more interactive than ye last, kay?"

"Nice!" He said "Now that I think about it, shouldn't we write these ideas down?"

"Sure, just a sec lad!" She said. Dashing away to come part of the room and returning with a napkin and a broken crayon.

"Here ye go!" She said offering the napkin and crayon.

"Um...Funtime Foxy, are you forgetting something?"

He raised his right arm, where Bon Bon then waved to her.

"Oh...Fine. I'll do it meself," She said sitting on an empty table "Now...I'd believe that ye last time we'd talked, we'd be on ye subject of trapeze swingin' and other awesome stuff we could be a'doin..."

Freddy couldn't help but snicker a little as she brainstormed all of the weird and wonderful ideas she had. And for the first time in his memory, he saw that they were in the same room outside of work hours and actually _cooperating_ rather than fighting.

And that stupendous feeling alone almost seemed to eclipse any previous thoughts about Funtime Foxy's occasional dangerous daydreams.

Almost.

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Hey guys, thought I might write you this since I spent a good deal of time on Emmet and Baby. Figured it was time for some other character development while he's watching hours of cat videos with Baby...Apologies if the end seemed kind of weak.**

 **Anyways, you all know what to do. Fav only if you feel like it and criticism is welcome. Don't worry, you can toss me around a little bit, I'm a big boy.**

 **That's all I have to say for now, and I hope all you have a happy new year!**


	9. Chapter 9- The nametag

**Chapter 9- The nametag.**

"Aww...that's adorable!"

"Yeah… really adorable when it's the _fifth_ time you've seen it."

Baby of course, kept laughing at the video as enjoyed the wonders of early cat videos.

Emmet meanwhile was beginning to become more impatient with each passing minute. He quickly found himself tapping on his legs and scratching behind his neck to pass time. While helpful, his efforts seemed to fail at making him less annoyed by the outdated videos.

He could feel himself tensing up, his patience running thinner and thinner as she kept watching the _same_ video that got on his nerves until finally, he felt like he was about to storm out of the room.

 _Remember that day you DID lose your patience?_ He reminded himself as a last resort.

He didn't need to remember that day: he _lived_ that day along with the unintended consequences that came along with it.

That alone was enough to make him endure whatever Baby did on the internet, so long as he no longer had to live through the hell that he went through that day.

 _Just roll with it...try to laugh with her...or suggest her something funny...maybe you'll find something good about this..._

He tried to focus on her enjoyment and after a few minutes, he found that there was one sliver of enjoyment from all this: her laugh.

Her laugh sounded life-like. So much, he would have actually thought she was a real child had it not been for her pulsating face plates and occasional clicking from her joints.

She looked happy. So happy...at least, far more than he had seen her when she was in her room...

 _You know...she's never really talked much about how her day went...she always asks me and never about herself...and now that I think about it, she looks in fairly good condition compared to the other robots..._

He compared how clean Baby's plates and dress was to Freddy's fur. While his plastic coating was certainly clean, it was starting to turn a little beige and dirty from use.

Maybe, a little too clean for this place...

 _Perhaps I'm not the only liar in this building..._ he thought _Maybe, there's something else going here...something I don't know about...Or maybe I'm just getting paranoid..._

While he was considering this terrifying possibility, he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He looked around and saw Baby smiling and rubbing her cheeks, letting out a few empty and dry chuckles while she was at it.

"My...my cheeks hurt..." She said rubbing her plated cheeks "...I...I think I've seen enough cat videos."

"I couldn't agree with you more." He added. Feeling a wave of relief as he pressed Alt+F4 to close the tab.

"Ahh...good memories..." She said standing back up. "I'm gonna remember those for a _long_ time…."

"I would be surprised if you didn't." He answered reclining in a swivel chair and kicking himself across the room on the wheels of the chair.

Baby didn't make any comments, just an occasional sigh of nostalgia as he kept going across the room for several times. Neither of them talking, but what Emmet could only assume was the same identical thought.

"Well...Now that that's out of the way, anything you wanna do?" He asked.

She looked around. Her emerald green eyes gazing up to the blank TV before they swiveled back to Emmet.

"Do you think we can play MarioKart again?" She asked

He scratched under his chin. Pondering, but careful not to brush off any of the makeup.

 _You know…_ he thought _maybe it's time I lived up to my name…at least, the name Baby knows me as._

"Baby," He said, projecting his voice to be of authority and honor "Playing videogames all night long seems kind of irresponsible and something any sensible and caring parent would say no to."

"Oh..." She sighed her gaze falling to the floor "I see...you want to teach me responsibility, integrity and-"

"Good thing I'm your brother though!"

She looked back up, her expression as confused as her hair was red. He could actually hear a faint clicking noise coming from her. Possibly, cogs inside of her head trying to processing what he had said.

It wasn't long before he heard a very faint _DING!_ Of an egg timer come from her.

"Oh..." she finally answered.

"Get what I'm saying?"

"Um...I think..."

"Can I walk you through?" He asked

"I'll try..." She said putting her fingers in-between her eye faceplates.

"So what you're saying is that you're _not_ a responsible parent, cause you're my bother?" She asked

"Yep,"

"And if that's true...it means you don't mind if we play video games all night long?"

"I believe that's what I said."

She blinked a few times.

"I...I think I got that down now..."

"Good," He said "Can you get Ballora while I get the Funtime robots?"

"Okay!" She answered as she began crawl into the ballerina's gallery vent, only to stop after going a few feet in.

"Um...Big Brother..."

"Yes?"

"Can...can I ask something?"

"I don't see why not,"

He could see she wanted to say something, perhaps, something bitter that lied behind that usually smiling face of her.

"Uh..." She said "Are you sure that the night guard won't come back?"

"I'm sure Baby," He reassured. "I mean, if _I_ had to go through this place with everybody thinking I was an intruder, I doubt I would return another night."

His logic seemed to calm her down, she looked less worried but all the more troubled by something he couldn't quite pin down.

"Okay..." She answered. Resuming to crawling through the vent while making several loud _THUMPS!_ A few metallic _SCREETCHES_! Followed by the monotone voice of _"Ballora gallery vent activated."_

He let himself relax a little bit in the swivel chair and let his thoughts collect themselves while he sat in the char.

 _Only four..._ he thought looking at his watch _Why is it time seem to go slow when I want it to go fast and go fast when I want it to go slow?_

He sighed.

 _I should probably go get Foxy and Freddy...But...I don't know why Baby sounded like she was to lead to something earlier..._

He pondered about the strange but delightful circus child.

 _Maybe she's just shy...I mean, I just did come into her life, I'll probably need to build at least some trust with her-_

"Why do you lie to her?" a high-pitched voice interrupted.

He snapped back and saw that on the windowsill, Bon Bon sat there by himself without Freddy. His grass green eyes focused on him.

"Oh...Bon Bon." He breathed in relief "You scared me...you know, I know that you may like this place, but I think we should put up some lights, cause this place gets _way_ too creepy at night-"

"Quit the act." He snapped.

His persistence and blatant statements unnerved Emmet. In the short time that he had known him, Bon Bon usually wasn't one to be demanding or talk the way he did now.

 _Something's clearly bothering him...just go along, maybe he'll ignore you and you'll be fine._ He thought

"Act?" He asked. "What act?"

"Quit lying. I know who you are _Emmet._ "

Emmet's blood ran cold and his face (had there not been paint) turned as pale as the face paint that he wore.

 _Stay calm...maybe he doesn't now..._ he relaxed himself

"I...Who are you talking about?" he lied "I don't know anybody named Emmet..."

"Really? Then what's that nametag on your shoulder?"

His eye snapped open. He felt a hot wave touch his painted face and skin yet his blood froze and a wave goosebumps was sent down his spine.

His eyes slowly moved down until they fell on a bright gold nametag on his left shoulder labeled _EMMET: Night Watchman._

"Oh shit..." He mouthed.

His darted back to Bon Bon only to see a smile creep across the hand puppet followed by a high-pitched giggle.

"So..."Bon Bon grinned "You _are_ the night guard,"

He felt the sweltering heat underneath the makeup and shirt. He couldn't lie, his disguise was next to useless, and somehow, Bon Bon had figured out who he was from the nametag.

 _How could have forgotten about the NAMETAG of all things on my disguise?! How could I have forgotten so crucial?!_

"Fine." He admitted "You got me. Feel happy?"

He saw the blue bunny chuckle a little bit. Its green eyes burning through him like Greek fire.

"Very much," he answered

He could feel a bead of sweat run down his back followed by a wave of chills. Somebody knew. And if somebody knew, it was only a matter of time before he said the word to somebody else. And that somebody else, if it wasn't Baby already, would spread it to her. More likely than not, she will be angry. And from the earlier reaction of the Biddbabs, her anger might be just a few short steps away from Hell, which was something Emmet _really_ didn't feel like being a part of.

Whatever the case, Bon Bon was dangerous to him. And dangerous people with dangerous information need to be removed before than can talk….

He looked around for something that could accomplish the removal of Bon Bon. He looked back and only saw an empty elevator

 _I can't go up there, not at least, with him making a lot noise... I need a distraction..._

He didn't see any weapons he could use to beat, stab or decapitate, but he did see Bon Bon all by himself, smug as ever that he had caught the elusive night guard.

 _Distraction..._

"I must say..." he said "I am amazed that you got me."

"So am I," He answered.

"Can you explain to me how you did it?" He asked while looking around as inconspicuously as he could.

"It was simple really," He boasted "I figured it out when we were playing MarioKart. I know that the workers here wear tags like that. And when I saw it, I remembered the only worker who was here from midnight to six vanished the _exact_ same day when 'Big Brother' showed up. "

He didn't answer him. His eyes darting around for more options out of this situation.

"After that, I kind of just put two and two together and...Well...here we are." he continued.

 _I need more time..._ He thought carefully thinking his plan over for anything that was as he thought, he came up with not only a plan, but a more terrifying idea than just one person finding out.

Could _there be MORE who figured it out?_

Emmet didn't know. He suddenly wasn't afraid of Bon Bon, but afraid of somebody- and God forbid _Baby_ \- was waiting in the shadows to pounce on his unguarded back.

He looked back, just in case, and only saw a grungy office behind him.

"Does anybody else aside from you know?" he asked looking over the office.

"Surprisingly, no." Bon Bon answered "Which is strange considering how long that tag was on you. I mean, I doubt Freddy and Funtime Foxy would have figured it out, but I didn't expect Ballora and Baby to fall for the same trick for so long..."

He let out a breath gentle but much-needed relief.

 _At least he's the only one who knows who I am..._

"But when I show everybody what you _really_ are behind that makeup, you'll be sorry...so sorry..."

He shook his head. Not that he was beaten or denying the truth, but that one-and a half foot tall puppet thought he had had him under his thumb.

 _Poor, diluted Bon Bon..._ He thought _it's going to take WAY more than you if you want to blow my identity..._

He mentally rehearsed his plan the thrown-together. It was reckless no doubt, but it was far better than letting Bon Bon squeal. And if things went as planned, he would still squeal.

But only a little.

"Hey Bon Bon,"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind?"

"Mind what?"

"If I do this?"

Before the bunny could even blink, Emmet made a lunge for his neck.

"Hey! Put me down! Only Freddy has the right to manhandle me!"

He weighed far more than Emmet could have imagined a one-foot tall puppet would weigh. He guessed that he was that he was at least fifteen to twenty-five pounds.

He constricted his hands tighter around his neck, trying to choke his neck and hush his voice.

"Let me go!" He yelled, his voice not changing no matter how hard he strangled him "I'll tell everybody about this! You're good as dead night guard!"

 _Well, looks like I can't strangle him..._ _Guess it's time to carry on with the plan._

He lugged himself and Bon Bon over to a microphone, where he then pressed on the red button near the restaurant microphone from what he inferred was used to make announcements.

"Due to a major a major programming quirk, Big Brother will be upstairs receiving a debugging session. We apologize for this inconvenience but don't worry, this won't take long. You may also hear screaming and a few toilet flushes from upstairs, but we assure you this is normal. This. Is. Normal. Do not. Be. Frightened. " He said in his most official voice possible into the microphone.

After that, He took his finger off of the button and made a dash for the elevator and elbowed the _Up_ button on the elevator.

"Release me fiend!" he yelled.

"No." he denied, anxiously waiting for the elevator to make it to the first floor.

His head wriggled around as he tried to squirm out of Emmet's grip until his square-ish jaw touched his thumb.

"If you don't, I'm gonna do something I _really_ don't wanna do!"

"Just shut up while I-OWW!"

He looked at his hand saw that that Bon Bon's head had moved forward and had _bitten_ him near his thumb.

"Jeeze!" he said letting him go from his stranglehold. The bunny dropping with a hollow _THUD!_ From his conical body.

Emmet looked at his hand and saw two buckteeth gashes near the bottom of his knuckle. Blood already starting to drip from his palm like meat juice or water.

 _Friggin bunny..._ he thought.

The robot attempted to crawl away from him with his arms, but was only able to go about two feet before Emmet grabbed him again. This time, picking him up by the ears with his left hand.

"OW!" He cried "Are you –OW- aware of how sensitive my ears are!?"

"Nope."

Finally, the elevator door whooshed open. Emmet walked inside, keeping Bon Bon about an arm's length away from him so the bunny couldn't grab his arm or try to bite him again. He slammed on the button to the first floor with his bleeding hand. Moments later, the great doors closed with a _FWOOSH_ and he felt the shaky push of the elevator as he ascended up.

He still struggled, but far less now that he was in the elevator, only giving a few jerks and an occasional lunge with his teeth at his arm.

"Where are we going?" Bon Bon asked, pounding at the door "What are you doing with me?"

He didn't answer him.

 _Maybe it's best if I don't tell him..._ _after all, who wants to know if something bad is gonna happen to them?_

A few moments later, the door of the elevator opened up to the usually empty main floor, with a tiled linoleum floor, main desk to the right, entrance/exit to the left, and the bathrooms across the hall.

He made a dash for the bathroom with his hand dripping and Bon Bon yelping in pain.

"OW! YOUCH! Where are we going!?OW!"

Emmet refused to answer.

 _Just get to the restroom...just get to the restroom_ He continued, lugging the hand puppet down the hallway until he bumped the bathroom door open to a surprisingly clean restroom with a couple of clean urinals and several empty stalls.

Bon Bon stopped shouting and looked around the empty and rather clean restroom.

"W-what are we doing here?" asked, a bit more frightened than before.

He staggered over to the first stall he could find and bumped the door open. Panting as Raised Bon Bon's body a few feet over the toilet bowl.

"Ever heard of getting a swirly?" He panted.

Suddenly, he saw Bon Bon's expression transform from one of uncertainty to complete panic.

"No..." he realized "Nuh-un Nope nope nope..."

"Oh yes." Answered with a hint of madness "No doubt defiantly short circuit in there. And all I have to do is let go of your ears...just like you wanted me to, right?"

He saw his eyes dart around. He tried to grab Emmet's arm, but he pushed them off with his f

"W-what do you want from me!?" He panted while trying to move his conical body away from the watery doom below.

"You know what I want,"

"A-and what's that?!" he asked,

"Your promise to _never_ tell my identity to anybody!" He hissed.

"Y-you're crazy!"

"You're just now figuring that out?"

He squatted, lowering Bon Bon a few inches away from the toilet bowl water.

"Gah!" he yelped, from what Emmet guessed was both pain and sheer terror of getting dunked into a toilet. "SSTOP!"

"Tell nobody or else!" He demanded.

Bon Bon didn't answer. He saw the bunny look at him before turning his gaze down.

"Is that a yes?"

He didn't answer.

"No?"

Nothing.

 _Well then...looks like we're playing THAT game..._

"Alright Bon Bon..." He said "I'm going to count down from five. And by the time I get to zero, I expect you to say you'll keep this under wraps or I dunk you underwater."

No objections came from the limp bunny.

"Five..." He counted, his hostage remaining as quiet as he was.

"Four..."

He uncurled his pinkie finger, Bon Bon still making no effort to resist him.

"Three..."

He opened his ring finger his grip slipping a little bit now that he was holding a ten to fifteen pound hand puppet with three fingers.

The hand puppet was still silent.

"Two..."

He uncurled his middle finger, Bon Bon suddenly getting heavier.

Emmet felt an unpleasant weight growing in his stomach as he saw Bon Bon's complete and total ignorance of the current situation.

 _Maybe you can talk him out of it..._

"Bon Bon," he said "You must understand, I don't want to kill you. Believe me; I want every night like tonight. I want everybody to have fun. I want everybody to be happy. And...Baby...she makes feel like I was with my actual sister. And that was a lifetime ago..."

He didn't respond.

"Bon Bon...I want you to live. Please, just say you won't talk about it..."

His victim was as limp and motionless as he ever was.

"One..." he counted, which sounded more like a choke and less like a count.

He uncurled his finger from him, leaving only his thumb pressing against his palm to hold him away from the watery death below.

"Bon Bon...talk to me..." He begged

Suddenly, he looked up from his slumped position.

"Y-you know...I actually t-thought you were kind of nice..." Bon Bon sniffled.

"You...you thought I was nice?"

"I mean...we seemed to get along earlier... and considering how much we fight, that's a once in a lifetime event..."

"I know right?"

He saw him chuckle.

"Emmet..."

"What?"

"I'll promise you something."

"Y-you will?"

He nodded his head.

"If you take my life tonight, you _will_ be caught." He said "I'm sure of it."

"Y-you're lying."

"Am I?" He chuckled "You do realize my unexplained disappearance will upset some people. And sooner or later, they'll figure out who was with me last..."

He never thought about that. If Freddy got curious, no doubt they would search. And eventually, they would find...

Bon Bon gazed down, chuckling again.

"But what can I say? I think you're a good kid Emmet. At least, I think you are..."

His mind was silent yet his thumb screamed from holding Bon Bon for so long. He figured he couldn't hold on much longer. At least, not without his muscle ripping off from his thumb.

Either way, his thumb was going to come off of Bon Bon's ear.

 _Maybe this is a new chance..._ he thought _A correction from last time...maybe the cost was lower. Or maybe it's higher and I'm just delusional..._

Whatever the case, was really only one way out of this mess.

He closed his eyes. Shivers down racing through his bones as he thought if he did this, he could be _that_ man from long ago.

And that was all he needed to decide.

"Zero."

He let his thumb uncurl from Bon Bon's ears and let him fall.

 **End of Chapter.**

 **I mainly wanted to make this so that way you guys know that I'm not dead or quitting.**

 **I'm sorry this took three weeks to upload. And I have a good reason why. You see, I've been writing essays.** _ **LOTS**_ **of essays. And whenever I was done, I just didn't have the energy to actually write the fanfic, since my mind was completely fried by then. And when** _ **that**_ **craziness ended, I started studying for the ACT. It also didn't help that I re-wrote this chapter a good three times before I finally settled upon what you have here...**

 **I'll try to update every week or so like I used to. These don't take that long to actually type but they do require some thought when I'm editing them.**

 **Aside from that, I hope to see you in the next chapter, bye!**


	10. Chapter 10-The rest of the night (Wbio)

**Chapter 10- The rest of the night.**

Looking, Emmet could have caught him and avoided this whole mess.

Then again, his hand was hurting like crazy from when Bon Bon had bitten him. And his

 _What's done was done._

Of course, he could do it again if needed to keep the truth quiet. It really just depended on who exactly found out. He could always just replace a Minirrena or Biddybab, but if it was one the major ones, he might have a problem.

 _On second thought... I'll just wipe their memories. It's better that way._

He took off the nametag. It was probably the best to remove that thing off before it compromised again.

He looked back at the stall.

 _He'll be okay...I'm sure he'll see why I did this soon._

He felt a faint itch from his hand. Emmet looked down and saw that the bite mark he had gained earlier had stopped bleeding for the most part, with a thin scab forming over the fresh wound.

 _And besides...I should clean up and disinfect this cut._

He turned to the sink and began cleaning himself up. Hissing when the soap stung the bite marks.

"Are you okay?" a voice called from behind.

He glanced back at the stall.

"It's not as painful as it sounds," he answered.

A few metallic clicking noises came from the stall.

"You're closing your eyes and hissing." The voice from the stall said "And according to my programming, that's usually a sign that somebody's in pain."

He glanced back.

"Don't worry my little cut Bon Bon, worry about yourself! You've got a giant dent in your face from that fall."

He heard a few _clinks_ coming from the stall before a metal hand-puppet hobbled out of the stall on its conical bottom.

He still couldn't believe that he moved his arm away from the toilet bowl before he dropped Bon Bon. He could have done it. Nobody could have stopped him from silencing Bon Bon.

Yet when he was about to let go, he seemed unable to do it.

Maybe it was the memory that Emmet had of that day-shift employee at Freddy Fazbear's from years ago that made him stop his act. Or, Bon Bon had actually gotten into his head.

Either way, his arm had moved seconds before he felt his thumb give out from holding a ten pound puppet for several minutes.

While Bon Bon didn't die in a shallow, unsanitary and watery grave, he didn't completely escape from his demise unscathed. His head had banged the lip of the bowl when he fell, causing a large and uncomfortable dent in right side of his head.

"Now that I think about it, how does it feel to have a giant dent in your face?" He asked vigorously scrubbing his hands.

"A little weird..." he said, running his small hand through the thick dent underneath his right eye. "Is it replaceable?"

"Probably."

Bon Bon made no comment as he washed his hands. Hearing faint clicks as Bon Bon waddled forward on his conical bottom. Moments later, he felt a tug near his ankle.

"Yes?" he asked, looking down.

"Can...Can I ask why you didn't...you know...kill me?" He stammered.

He kept scrubbing. His mind a blank for answering Bon Bon's question.

 _Now that I think about it...I'm not sure why I stopped..._

"Not sure." He answered while drying his hands with some paper towels. "Maybe you managed to get into my head, maybe it was guilt if I did go through with it. Personally, I have no idea."

He didn't respond to Emmet. He then turned off the sink, balled up the paper towel and threw it into a nearby trash can.

"I...I don't know how to thank you." Bon Bon added.

"I can think of one way." He answered, balling up the paper and throwing it away.

"What do you- Oh..."

"Yeah. You know what I'm talking about."

The hand puppet sighed like a teenager being lectured.

"I promise I won't tell anybody." He answered. Raising his right hand and crossing his hand over his heart.

Bon Bon's promise did sound good. In fact, it was exactly what Emmet wanted to hear. However it felt...forced. More specifically, he felt like the puppet was merely just saying what he wanted to hear. That way, when he wasn't paying attention, he could show him for who he really was.

Of course, every kid, teenager and adult (Emmet included) had done this before. And of course, Emmet doubted his promise.

 _I need more than just a promise from him..._ He thought _I need him under my thumb and him actually WANTING to promise..._

Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to think of something that he could use. He had thought about when Bon Bon had mentioned it. All that was left, of course, was for Emmet to actually act it out. Which would be easy, given that Emmet was uncannily good at acting and drama in college.

He bent over, shook Bon Bon's tiny plastic hand (Which couldn't have been larger than his pinky or ring finger)

"At least that's out of the way…." He acted sadly. Doing his best to try and get the bunny's attention.

"Are unhappy with something?"

"No..." He answered, not bothering to try and mask his act as upset.

"Stop lying."

He internally he sneered. Bon Bon bought the act. Now all that was needed was to get him hooked...

"Is it really that obvious?" He answered. Continuing his act of being sad.

"It kind of is," Bon Bon said "Are you all right?"

He made a heavy sighed.

"Remember how you said that Baby will find out this and that I won't get away with what I'm doing?"

"Yes..." He answered "Why?"

"Well... I've been thinking about what you said and I've come to realize that I really _can't_ do this forever."

Bon Bon shot a raised eyebrow at him. It wasn't much, but then again, his attention was all the he really needed

"What are you saying?"

"I...I just don't think I...I can't lie to Baby forever." He admitted "It's like you said, She'll get suspicious about me. And sooner or later. She _will_ find out..."

The blue hand puppet didn't respond or retort to his remark. His green eyes remained focused on him with an undivided attention. Which was all he needed to tip the scales in his favor.

"And...the more thought about it, I figured that perhaps it's better if it's too late. At least, before I find myself dead..." He acted.

"Leave?!"

He nodded sadly. Yet internally, Emmet had an evil grin that spread from eye to eye as Bon Bon continued to buy the act.

 _Hooked'em. Now, time to reel him in..._

"Maybe after tonight." He acted "It's better that way. She'll forget about me soon..."

"T-tonight?!" Bon Bon outbursted "W-why?!"

He looked over.

"Do you think I _want_ to leave Bon Bon?"

Bon Bon had a blank face for a few seconds.

"Um...No?" he answered.

"Exactly," He answered "But could you imagine how devastated Baby would be if she found out that her 'older brother' was a lie this entire time?"

The bunny raised a tiny finger, only to lower it back down and started on his nails(?). He saw that he was muttering something just faintly out of his hearing. Something about "No...Not again...never again...I-I don't wanna see Baby angry or sad again..."

While he wanted to dive deeper into what it was like to have Baby angry or sad, since he could only speculate from the Biddybabs and now Bon Bon, but he figured it could wait. Right now, he just needed to get the argument in his favor and shake on it Before Bon Bon caught onto what he was doing.

He quickly stopped muttering to himself and turned to Emmet with a look of desperation.

"E-Emmet, I'm sorry for trying to bust you, okay? But in case you haven't noticed, life down here is _awful_."

He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

 _This is new..._

"Awful?" he asked

Bon Bon nodded.

"But...you look happy." He commented

"I am."

"Then why did you say that you're not?"

"Cause it's...never mind...let's just say that you've given this place something that we haven't felt in a _long_ time. And I-well, everybody if they were here- don't want that to go away. This place just has been so much better with you around."

"I've been here for less than 12 hours."

"So what?! Those twelve hours we spent together were better than the months we spent imprisoned here!"

 _Imprisoned?_

That was a new word. Of course, he knew what it meant, but considering how Bon Bon used it to describe this place made Emmet pull a mental emergency brake. (In the daylight of course.).

"Imprisoned?" He asked "What's so imprisoning about this place?"

"None of us are willing to say it, but this place is perhaps second place to a prison till you came." He answered "We've...we've never seen the sky or sun, only concrete walls. W-we perform on a strict schedule and can't perform the way we want to. And if we try to go outside or do something out of script, they- or you in this case- would give us a controlled shock. Or worse, get scooped.."

Once again, he heard that phrase- _scooped-_ and was still clueless on what it actually meant. However, based off of the way Bon Bon had used it, he could only assume that it was something far worse than getting a controlled shock. Which begged to raise the question: why threaten the robots if their job was to perform? If they failed, then why not replace them rather than give them death threats?

Unless, they weren't _really_ robots...

 _Perhaps there's something more going on down here than robots coming to life...Something darker..._

Before he could ditch Bon Bon and start searching through his boss' file cabinets for anything incriminating about the information, he stopped himself.

 _Hold your curiosity_ He thought _You need to win the argument. All you need is a deal in your favor, and in then you can get curious._

He retained his composure, and looked at Bon Bon with as hopeful as a gaze as he could pull off.

"Bon Bon," He called.

"What?"

"Can...Can I really trust you to keep my identity a secret?"

Bon Bon's eyes snapped open with a look of a desperate hope .

"O-of course! You have my word!"

"Really?" He asked

"I promise!" he said with far more passion than when he had promised earlier "I swear won't tell anybody about your identity or what happened as long as you don't leave! Please! Please stay!"

He felt smirk to grow on his face. Bon Bon's pleas were like music to his ears as it fit so snugly and perfectly into his act. He had convinced Bon Bon to bargain for a win-win situation for him (Or a lose-lose situation from Bon Bon's unaware view.)

All the pieces had fallen into place, and all that remained was actually agreeing to Bon Bon's deal.

"Let's shake on it," He said.

"Deal!" Bon Bon agreed.

He then shook the puppet's small plastic hand. Emmet smiling from how the bunny was completely unaware that now, _Emmet_ had power over him. Even better, the puppet didn't appear to notice the lose-lose situation that he had gotten himself into by agreeing both not to tell his identity _and_ that he could stay.

Needless to say, it was a masterful deceit at its finest.

"Well...now that that's cleared up, let's forget this ever happened, okay?" He purposed

"What?" Bon Bon asked "Did something happen tonight?"

"I don't know..." He answered "Now, let's get out of this bathroom and go to someplace more enjoyable."

He picked him up. This time, carrying him like a cat or small child rather than picking him up by the ears or neck like earlier. He walked out of the bathroom, and instead of going straight to the elevator to the underground restaurant, he took a right to the front entrance.

"Uh...where are we going?" Bon Bon asked as Emmet walked to the front door.

"You said you've never seen the outside."

Suddenly. Bon Bon's eyes lit up.

"Emmet...It's a stupid idea. Maybe you should just let it go..."

"Hey, I thought wearing makeup and pretending to be Baby's older brother was stupid, and look how _that_ turned out,"

"You left your nametag on where _anybody_ could see it."

"You get the idea." He said putting him down on a table while fumbling for his keys "Besides, I need some fresh air."

"But...isn't that breaking the rules?"

"We've played over two hours of Mariokart on company hours and I let the robots roam around the building without administering a controlled shock. I think we broke the rules long ago."

Bon Bon made a blank face before he spoke.

"Well...what if we're locked out?"

"I have the keys if we do." He answered. Jingling the key ring to further his point.

Bon Bon's green eyes searched for some sort of excuse.

"I..Uh..."

"You're out of excuses."

He saw Bon Bon bite the bottom of his plastic lip. And was he...red from embarrassment?

 _That's new..._

While Emmet doubted that colors could change on their plastic plates, he could see Bon Bon's face turn a bit red, with the tips of his ears actually turning pink and his body temperature increasing.

 _Guess you learn something new every day..._

"Fine...but...can it be quick?"

"We can stay all night if you want to." He answered. "But we probably should be short. Baby and everything..."

He saw Bon Bon glance back again.

"And, you're okay with this?" He asked as they walked to the glass front door of the restaurant.

"If I wasn't, I'd be giving you a controlled shock right about now."

He thought he could see a faint grin grow on Bon Bon.

"Need a moment before we go outside?" He asked

Bon Bon nodded.

"Just a little nervous."

"Then let's go before you have any second thoughts."

"Yeah...Wait-"

He pushed opened the door with his shoulder, feeling a blast of chilly air blow through as he exited the restaurant.

It was a clear night with stars filling up the sky and the moon hanging high in the night sky. Had Bon Bon not been in his hands, he might have gotten his phone to take a picture.

However pretty it was, he wasn't here for himself: he was doing this for Bon Bon.

He walked away until he was in the middle of the empty of the parking lot.

"Go nuts." He said. Raising Bon Bon up to the night sky Simba-style.

Of course, light pollution, the atmosphere and God knows what-else did limit the number of stars actually visible. Nonetheless, Bon Bon seemed to absorbing as much of the night sky as he could. He didn't speak. He didn't appear to be making any satirical comments nor any sort of snarky remarks. He seemed to be totally and engrossed with the night sky and all of its vastness.

"Wow..." Bon Bon mouthed. "Incredible..."

"So...what do you think?" He asked.

"It's...its better than I could have ever imagined." He answered "A little colder and darker than I thought though..."

"Hey, it's four AM in February. Of course it's going to be colder and darker compared to the rest of the day."

"There's a day too?!"

"Of course! You should see the sky when it's sunny! Arguably prettier than the night sky."

He saw that Bon Bon was in awe. Perhaps for the first time in his life.

He was actually getting kind of worried. His arms, though strong, were starting to get a little tired from holding him up for so long.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that Bon Bon finally turned his head.

"Thank you Emmet." He answered "I'm... I'm glad that you're staying. I'm glad that I finally saw the outside. I...I wish Ballora, Baby, Fox- I mean- _Funtime_ Foxy and Freddy could see this.."

He never thought about bringing them. He doubted it was impossible, but then again, he would need an excuse for bringing them out. Or at least, a place where they could blend in...

He pondered Bon Bon's words as he too found himself looking at the sky for several minutes, attempting to remember constellations.

"Come on Bon Bon." He said "Let's go."

"Alright..." he answered "I've seen the sky for one night...Thank you Emmet."

He then re-entered the building and re-entered the elevator. The doors to the elevator then closed with a _FWOOSH_ followed by the powerful jerk of the shaky elevator dropping down. Moments later, the elevator slowed until it finally halted on the bottom floor. Emmet didn't hear the AI speak, so he just went through the vent as he normally did.

After crawling for some time, he finally poked his head out of the grate and found that the main control module, which had previously been empty when he had left, was now filled up by Ballora, Baby, and Both Funtime Foxy and Freddy.

When he popped out of the elevator, their heads swiveled to his direction (Baby's performing a full 180 degree turn followed by the rest of her body a few seconds later.)

"Where were you?!" Baby asked. Her green eyes flaring up like copper put in fire. "And why are you holding Bon Bon?!"

"Oh...um...that..." He answered "Minor debugging."

He saw Baby's green flames quickly extinguish from his explanation. Funtime Freddy, however, looked horrified.

"Bon Bon!" He yelled "What happened to your face?!"

Freddy's statement caught him off guard. But luckily, he was able to come up with a reasonable excuse that involved at least some of the truth.

"Yeah...I accidently knocked him over in the debugging process. Took a while before my motor functions were disabled..."

He looked like a concerned parent or some sort of collector who just had one of his items damaged.

"Is it reversible?" He asked.

"Of course." He answered "I'll be able to fix him before my shif- I mean- before management takes me back up for diagnostics and stuff."

He felt a wave of heat wash over him. His nerves on the fringe as he feared that he might have blown his identity.

Luckily, Funtime Freddy didn't appear to have noticed what he said. However, he saw his gaze focus on the puppet. Who in turn, looked moved his eyes and tried to smile like a kid who just broke a window.

"Bon Bon. How did you disconnect without me knowing?" he demanded.

He suddenly saw Bon Bon turn a bit red like earlier.

"Well...you see...You were _really_ chatting it up with Funtime Foxy earlier and...well, I got bored. So I detached from your hand to see if there was anything else going on."

Freddy didn't answer to his answer. Only giving a scolding expression to the puppet.

"Big Brother," He asked "Can you hand Bon Bon over to me?"

He wasn't in the mood to argue with Freddy, so he gave Bon Bon over to Freddy, where he then reattached Bon Bon to his stump hand.

"Please don't do that to me again Bon Bon," Freddy said with relief and scorn "Or at least, tell me where you're going to go before you do..."

Bon Bon didn't answer but he saw him nod to his statement. The puppet too looking relieved as Freddy was.

"Okay then..." Baby interrupted. "Now that that's cleared up, do you wanna play videogames?"

"Sure! But just out of curiosity, what time is it?" He asked

"Just a sec," Baby said. Her eyes briefly closing before re-opening again.

"Currently, it's about four-twenty." she answered

He snickered.

 _Oh...so many weed jokes I should make at this time...but then again, Baby's here. And I'm not sure if Ballora is able to tolerate any language or suggestions above PG._

"Okay then...that leaves...about an hour to an hour an twenty minutes of pure raw playtime." He answered "Which gives us with the wonderful options of Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas, Mariokart, Prop hunt, Civ five and Smash bros. And since most of the games feature single-player games over rated T, I'm assuming were doing Mariokart."

"Yes," Ballora assured him.

"Figures...I'll start up the game." He said.

"Big Brother?" She asked "Are you certain that this time there will not be any similar actions like the last time?"

"Nope." He answered "But I did disable the blue shell function, which I can guarantee will create far less rage than last time.

"Thank ye lad!" Funtime Foxy rejoiced "Ye have no idea how much I'd dislike them things!"

"I hated them too." He responded " _Way_ too much power for a single item."

"Exactly..." She answered. Her voice slipping into the deep grumble of a sailor for a brief second.

 _Okay then..._ He thought. Taken back by her sudden and rather strange masculine voice that she was capable of "So...everybody up for round two?"

"Ye bet yer lucky stars lad!" She answered.

"I guess I had nothing better to do tonight..." Freddy added.

"I shall take this time to relish in freedom while it exists." Ballora chimed.

"Count me in!" Baby cheered. "Besides, It'll get boring really fast if I'm the only one not playing with everybody."

"Alright then..." He said cracking his knuckles and a few joints in his neck. Hearing and feeling a satisfying crack as they popped. "Let's do this."

The system started up quickly. And soon, everybody had a Wii pro controller (Emmet took one for the team and stuck with his lowly and uncomfortable Wii remote) and had picked out their cars and selected their course. This time, Emmet knew they would have fun, since there were no pesky blue shells to ruin anybody's day or night or whatever weird category 4:24 AM fell into.

He looked over at the robots, eyes on the screen, air tense before the start, and realized something, something he never really thought about much until Bon Bon had told him about this place.

 _They...they've made me as happy as I have made them._

It was kind of hard for Emmet to deny the change that he had just realized. Prior to entering this place, he saw himself as a rather sadistic and sarcastic person who was haunted by his failure from way long ago. Now, however, he saw himself as more social, and generally a much more friendlier (Though still sarcastic) person. Of course, he was still horrified by his actions (more specifically his lack of it) yet all that seemed to melt away as he played with them.

He figured if having fun with them kept him as happy as he had been these past two days, he would gladly stay.

"Just cause we'd be friends again, it don't mean that I'd be a'goin easier on ye." Funtime Foxy said to her Funtime counterpart.

"Yeah. Keep saying that while losing." Funtime Freddy snarked.

He smirked and realized that he couldn't have asked for a better job.

 _3..._

 _2..._

 _1..._

 _START!_

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Sorry to bother you, but I want you all to know that I'm opening a Wattpad account. So if you like Wattpad more than Fanfiction, congrats! I'll be uploading (Or at least, doing my best effort) to update on Wattpad. (It may take some time to set up. Hopefully it will be done by the next chapter where I'll give my username.)**

 **And like I said earlier, thank you for being such wonderful readers and reviewers! Let me know if I made any grammatical/spelling/comprehension mistakes and I hope to see you in the next chapter!**

 **Until next time,**

 **Stay magical my friends.**


	11. Chapter 11- The rest of the night (Pt2)

**Chapter 11- The rest of the night (Part 2)**

"I won...I FINALLY WON!"

"So close to victory..."

"Dang it! Well, at least we beat Funtime Foxy, right Bon Bon?"

"Almost had ya if it weren't for those curse'd red shells that last lap!"

 _Well...this is certainly a first._

An hour earlier, Emmet would have never thought that he come in dead last to a bunch of robots who were incapable of driving in a straight line and somehow managed to drive in the wrong direction.

Yet here he was in dead last, with two of the robots who originally drove in the wrong direction soundly beating him.

He was a little upset about his defeat, yet it was mostly drowned out by amazement. He couldn't help but admire whoever made the robots. Cause whoever did, put one heck of an AI into these things. It took Emmet a good week of racing with his college friends before he could be at the level that he was tonight, yet the robots had managed to match and surpass his level in a short hour.

 _Their programming is incredible..._ He thought, watching Baby walk and occasionally skip over to the other robots. He then saw Ballora, whom was a little upset by losing to Baby in less than a second, quickly change a faintly sour expression to one of beaming joy along with the circus child.

 _They all act so...human._

He then saw Funtime Foxy, who had come in fourth place, be congratulated by Baby. She originally looked upset after losing to Freddy, but almost instantly, her facial expression changed from upset to enthusiastic in a matter of microseconds like Ballora before her.

 _Really human...Maybe_ _TOO_ _human for it to be an_ _AI_...

As far as Emmet knew, there was no robot in _existence_ capable of going through _that_ many emotions in the span of a few seconds.

Unless, of course, he counted the supposedly "haunted" Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria, which he knew from firsthand experience what they were like after hours...

 _Naw, it has to be AI._ He retorted to himself _It has to. I mean, what kind of maniac would be crazy enough to try to replicate the robots at Freddy Fazbear's?_

He sat in the leather chair in the control module and pondered that thought for a little bit.

 _Then again, I'm crazy enough to work here at night for minimum wage..._

"I won Big Bro! I finally won!" Baby cheered, interrupting his thoughts.

He re-focused on Baby, who was still overjoyed with her first win.

"Congrats," He said patting on her shoulder. "Way to win,"

He guessed he didn't say it in the happiest tone, because she looked up at him, her face changing in microseconds from joy to a face of regret.

"Brother...I'm sorry you came in last..." She said "I got kind of caught up in the race...I guess I didn't really notice how far behind you were..."

"It's okay," He said "I've lost before and I'll lose again. The only thing that matters right now is that you've won your first race,"

He never really considered himself a good sibling after his thirteenth birthday, and he higly doubted that he could be a.

In all honesty, he thought what he said was more of a cop-out rather than an actual reason. But whatever the case, Baby's mood naturally changed from regretful to happy.

"Really?" She asked "Are you happy when I'm happy?"

"Yes," he admitted. "Your joy makes me has happy as much as it makes you happy,"

Once again, he thought his response was more of a cop-out.

Baby just stood there for a few seconds. Her eyes unblinking and unmoving.

 _Oh no..._ _Did I break a processor or a microchip or-_

She made a full smile and gave him another spine-popping hug.

 _Never mind...she just wants to hug..._

"Thanks brother," She said "Those technicians were right; you being squishy _does_ feel good!"

"They thought you'd like that," he choked out of Baby's hydraulic press of a hug.

She then closed her eyes as she kept hugging him. He treasured this hug for a moment before he suddenly started seeing sparks and random colors in his vision from the lack of oxygen.

"...Baby, not that I don't like your hugs, but you're starting to crush my circuitry…"

"Oh...sorry,"

He felt her hug loosen, and Emmet thought he would never be so relieved to breathe again.

 _Thank God..._

"So...anybody up for another round?" Her purposed after regaining his breath.

Usually when he asked that the question, the robots were pretty enthusiastic and would agree to keep racing. However, this time, they looked at the Circus Baby.

"You know Big Brother, I kind of want to end the night on a high note," She said

"Don't worry, I understand." He said.

Baby gave him the controller, the other robots standing by.

"What about you guys?" He asked

"You know, I'm gonna have to side with Baby on this one," Freddy said.

"Me too lad,"

"I concur with my friends," Ballora added.

Seconds later, they too handed him their controllers.

"Okay then...I guess we're done for tonight,"

He powered the Wii off, and then put it way into his backpack along with the other games and consoles he had and some notebooks that looking back, he probably should have read to prepare for the upcoming exams.

They stood in the control module.

He suddenly felt like he was at the end of some sort of comedy movie, where the only thing missing was one of the characters saying "Now what?" or making some kind of fourth wall joke.

 _Now that I think about it,_ He thought _what would I say right now if this WAS a story or movie?_

He pondered that thought for a few moments.

 _You should go outside,_ he imagined talking to a nonexistent audience _You know, get some fresh air. You've been sitting for a while now. Yeah, that sounds about right at this time…._

He glanced at his watch.

 _5:37..._

"We still got thirty minutes to kill," he purposed "Anybody got any ideas?"

It defiantly wasn't the best icebreaker, but he figured it was enough to at least get a conversation going.

But once again, the robots looked at each other, and remained silent.

 _Now that I think about it...can they talk mentally?_

He never considered that idea, but considering that they had managed to learn how to beat him in Mariokart in less than an hour while It took him a good week before he could start beating his college friends, it wasn't a totally stupid idea. On the contrary, it was terrifying since Bon Bon could spill all of his secrets and the near-death incident without him even realizing it.

 _Not to self: find a design book or blueprints. I need to know what these things can do before I do something stupid without even realizing it..._

His thoughts were interrupted when Freddy raised his right arm while Bon Bon also raised his much smaller blue right hand.

"I have an idea!" Bon Bon said, raising his tiny hand as well.

"What's that?" He asked as normally as he could.

"Can you fix my face please?" he asked, pointing to the large and really hard to miss dent underneath his right eye.

 _Wow..._ He thought _can't believe I forgot about that..._

"Sure thing." He said "Just...um...how do I get your face off, without, you know, tearing your head off?"

He saw Bon Bon take what he could only guess was a sigh of pity before he pressed on his tiny red bowtie. A _hiss_ came from him, and his face _separated_ into five major pieces like it had gone through and manual apple slicer.

He saw Bon Bon pick at his right cheek plate (At least, what Emmet assumed was a cheek plate) and plucked the dented plate off, revealing a mess of rough endoskeleton coils underneath the smooth and friendly-looking plastic plates.

"Here you go," He said, handing him the dented piece.

He found himself, standing there, processing what just happened. He couldn't describe how he felt, but he felt that it was a weird mix of amazement of the process, confusion as to why they would need it, and slight terror at the endoskeleton, since the actual endoskeleton was a mess of muscle-like cords of steel rather than the old blocky design that he used to know.

"Well...are you going to fix it?" Bon Bon asked

"Oh, right...sorry," he said taking his eyes off of the endoskeleton "Just kind of distracted. That's all,"

He walked over to the table for the control module and tried to search for a hammer, paperweight, or anything that looked heavy and strong enough to pound out a dent. The only thing he could really find that came close to that was a mug that read _World's best guard_ and had a superglued handle on it.

He looked around for anything that could be a bit more useful than the mug and his eyes looked down at his boots. He bent over, untied one shoe, and gripped the toe part, making a solid, rubbery and wide mallet head out of the heel.

"Um...Brother?" Baby asked "Are you sure you're doing this right?"

"Don't worry," he said holding the plate down on the table and raising up his shoe "This is _exactly_ how employees here fix dents."

He then hammered the heel of his shoe into the dent. Surprisingly, the sole of his shoe made a wonderful rubber mallet. About ten or fifteen hits later, the dent had successfully been un-dented. Although the plate looked a little lumpy and slightly misshaped from the hammering, he doubted that anybody would notice unless they were less than one foot away from Bon Bon.

"There you go!" he said handing the fixed face plate back to the robot.

Bon Bon took the face plate, looked over it a few times, placed it back on top of the exposed endoskeleton part of his face, and pressed his bright red tie again, which retracted the face plates back to his normal looking face.

"Thanks," Bon Bon said "Feels _wonderful_ now that that annoying dent is out of the way,"

"Anytime," he said putting his shoe back on and relaxed in the chair.

Seconds later, a heavy silence filled the room.

"Like I said, anybody got anything else?" he asked

Funtime Foxy and Freddy looked at each other, Baby too joining the exchange of glances. Ballora however, stepped away from them.

"No thank you," Ballora said "I do not have any other ideas on what to do for the remainder of the night,"

"You sure?" he asked

She nodded. "I thank you for the fun you have brought here tonight, and I look forward to more nights in your company,"

"You were a blast to be around with too," He complemented. "Hope to see you tomorrow,"

She smiled, curtsied, opened the vent to her room, and then crawled into it. A minute later, he could hear the first few chimes of _Shattered dreams_ echo through the room with a haunting yet calming vibe.

"Anything else?" Emmet asked again.

His question was met with Funtime Foxy and Freddy saying something between them that was either too fast or too low for him to hear, but nonetheless, it ended with Freddy giving Funtime Foxy a gentle shove forward toward him. She let a low growl, but nonetheless, stepped up to talk with him.

"Yes?" he asked

"So...um...look lad, me and Funtime Freddy were a'talking and we'd...we'd agreed that our act'ed be much cooler if we'd be a'addin' some new stuff. And we'd be a'hoping that management would let us do that,"

While he absolutely _loved_ Funtime Foxy's accent and thought it was just fun to listen to, it was a bit problematic when explaining information. Luckily, it took him some time to figure out what she was asking him to do.

"Alright then," He said "Do you have a list or something that I can give to management?"

"Don't worry, we already made one!" Freddy said.

"You did?"

"Yep!" he said, handing him a wadded up napkin in his left hand "Everything's on here, at least, what we have at the moment,"

He took the napkin from Freddy's grubby hand.

"Don't worry Freddy," he said, pocketing the note "I'll try to give management."

"Do you think they'll like it?" He asked.

He chuckled.

"Hey, I'm here, so I think they're looking for something new to entertain the kids,"

His logic made sense, which made Freddy appear all the more optimistic.

"Thanks," he said, turning around and opening the vent to his and Funtime Foxy's room "See you later!

"See you tomorrow! or tonight. You know, I really don't know what sort of thing to say at this time..."

"Neither have I lad," Funtime Foxy related "But ye get the idea, right lad?"

"Yep,"

She made and toothy smile, waved, and then crawled in after Freddy. After the thumps of their traveling, all was once again quiet. Leaving him all alone with Circus Baby.

He remained sitting in his chair, she continued to stand, yet she looked...bothered.

"Sis, is there something on your mind?"

She looked at him.

"Kind of..."

"Well, what is it?"

He saw her finger twirl around one of her bright red pigtails and her green eyes looking at her feet and then back at him.

"Um...I hope I'm not annoying you, but do you know when you'll perform? You know, full time with us?"

Suddenly, the calm and relaxed evening came to a grinding halt.

 _Shit._

He bit the inside of his lip, he never thought of a good lie to answer a question like _that_ , but luckily, it wasn't too hard to think of an excuse.

"To be fair Baby, I'm not entirely sure,"

Her hair drooped like it a sad dog or cartoon character.

"Oh...okay..." She said, her eyes lowering to the floor "I just wanted to know that's all..."

"I'm sorry," he apologized "But like I said: I have no idea if these tests will be done. I mean, they could be done in ten hours or ten months, but..."

"But what?" She asked

He pretended to look around to make sure that nobody was around.

"Can you keep a secret?"

Suddenly, her lax and droopy expression perked back up with interest.

"Secret?" She whispered back.

He did an unnecessary double check before turning to her.

"I overheard management, and they said that I might be able to perform with everybody a few days in March..."

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and a great big grin grew on her face.

"YOU'LL PERFORM WITH US!?" She shouted perhaps in the most non-secretive way

"Yes," he answered, surprised by how loud she was "But can you quite down so that-"

She suddenly picked him up as if he were a small dog, cat, or stuffed animal and began to spin around while holding him.

"YES! YES WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Apparently, the whole stay-quiet thing didn't reach her.

"Baby..." he gagged from her hug and his dizziness "Crushing..."

"Oh...sorry,"

She then stopped spinning, set him down, and then let him go.

"Sorry...I'm just...YES!" She said pumping her arms. "I get to perform again! And this time, with my big brother!"

"Yeah…" he said "It'll be good when we perofrm- wait, _again_?"

Suddenly, he saw Baby made an _oops_ face, like she had remembered a forgotten homework assignment or chore.

"Whaaa?" She asked "Did I say _again?_ What I meant to say was….um…."

"No offense Baby, but you're a terrible liar." He said "Now…What did you mean by again?"

He saw her eyes dart around, clearly looking for something to start up a new conversation.

"Um...he he...yeah funny story..."

"Baby..." He scolded "What happened?"

Suddenly, she looked like some kid who was about to admit that they had scratched their parent's car, got a detention, or accidently broke their neighbor's window with a baseball.

"Well….to be honest...I have no idea why I only performed once,"

"You've only performed _once?_!"

She nodded unwillingly.

"Well, what happened?" he asked

She shrugged "To be honest, I have no idea."

He scratched his chin.

"Do you think that an overly-critical child didn't like your performance?"

"I don't think so," She said "I did what I was programmed to do that day. I sang, I made balloons, I kept count of the children at all times, I gave a child who was alone some ice-cream, and I don't really know-"

"Wait a minute...You can make _Ice cream_?!"

She nodded.

He grinned.

 _Hey, if I'm gonna spend six hours risking my ass, minus well get some ice cream along with my money._

"You wouldn't mind showing me where the ice cream maker is...right?"

"Of course not!" She said

"Good!" he said "Now...can you lead to it?"

"Sure! It's _right_ here!"

She then pointed to her stomach. He didn't know why, but he started to have dark thoughts.

 _Is….is this like an innuendo or adult joke or something?_

"Um...why are you pointing at your stomach?"

"Don't you know? I can make ice cream!"

Her stomach then opened up with two double doors to reveal a hollow cavity. On the back wall of the space, a picture of a regular double-dipped vanilla ice cream was seen.

 _Huh,_ he thought. _No wonder she weighs so much._ _She's literally a walking refrigerator..._

"So….you can make ice cream."

"Yes!"

"Can…. you make me some ice cream?" He asked

She made a sad sigh and then closed up the doors to her easy-bake oven/ice cream maker/stomach.

"Sorry...I can't." She said "I don't know why, but I just can't seem to make ice-cream anymore,"

He let a bit of a sad sigh out.

 _SO much for getting a Sunday at six am..._

"I wish I could perform again," She said sadly, twirling one of her red pieces of 'hair' "It was so much fun…."

"Hey, they'll have to let you perform again," he said

"Why?"

"Cause you're too dang cute _not_ to let you perform."

Admittedly, Emmet thought she was probably cute when her faceplates went unnoticed and it was daylight, but that didn't seem to matter, all he needed to do was keep her happy. And his words seemed to fill that purpose.

She walked forward, and gave him another hug.

"Thanks brother," She said

"You're welcome." He said, hugging her back.

"Am I crushing you?" She asked

"No." he answered "Not at all. In fact, this is perfect,"

He stayed that way until he heard a _BEEP BEEP BEEP!_ From his watch. He looked over at his wrist and saw _6:00 AM_

 _Shift's up._

"Sorry…I have to go back up,"

"Okay..." She said unwillingly.

They broke their hug. He put his backpack back on his back and stepped into the open elevator.

"Bye Brother!" She said "See you tomorrow!"

"Yeah, see you tomorrow!" He answered.

He waved at her, and she at him.

The elevator doors then closed, followed the jerk of the elevator as it began to ascend from the underground circus.

He sat in the elevator, and started rethinking the events of the night. Smiling and occasionally laughing until he remembered Baby's reason why she performed once…..

 _What logic is that? Let a new robot perform for only one performance, and then never let it perform again? Just….why?_

Emmet never heard of something like that. The only reason he could think why that happened was because the manager had a blip of stupidity or was high on something when he said that. But he doubted both, since he actually met the man in his interview, and that man was appeared and acted like the kind of person who wouldn't do either.

 _Something's not right..._

He thought about it some more. He figured that performing robots like Baby could probably be taken down for occasional maintenance or debugging, but _permanent_ removal?

He tried to think of times that robots got removed.

 _Well...there's_ _1983 and 1987, but even then, that doesn't make any sense! In 1983, some kid's head got crushed by an old spring-lock costume and in 1987, Foxy had torn off a freaking FRONTAL LOBE!_

 _This makes no sense!_ He thought kicking the door _How was she removed when she hadn't done anything like that?_

He pondered the dilemma some more.

 _No….the only other reason would unless the robot was hated, which I doubt she was, which still makes no sense!_

But looking back at the two incidents. In both, a child was either killed or seriously injured.

 _Unless...Baby did something that hurt a child._ He thought _but even then, she didn't say that she did but…._

He pondered the idea. Given the cases, the only real and logical way that this all would make sense would be…

 _What if she's lying?_

And for a few moments, he considered this terrible possibility.

 _If Baby is lying, and I don't know why she would lie, she must have done something as bad as Foxy or that old Fredbear suit. But even then, if she did hurt a child, it would be all over the news like the incidents at Freddy's._

 _Unless, somebody didn't report it or was threatened not to..._

He found himself gripping the bar.

 _And if that happened it would be just like-_

He stopped himself there.

 _No. No no!_ he thought _I will NOT think about it! I've already gone through the hell of Freddy Fazbear's way too many times in my life thank you very much!_

he leaned back and gripped the bar.

 _I need to think of something else, perhaps, like that list I need to read._

He unfolded the napkin, and for a moment, he thought he was looking at a piece of modern art with its irregular zigzags and cris-crosses.

It took him a good ten seconds of hard focusing to realize that the napkin was actually the list that Funtime Foxy and Freddy had made. And that the "Artwork" was _incredibly_ bad handwriting written in freaking _crayon_ , making it even harder to decipher.

He spent another twelve seconds trying to find the first item on the list, but he was only able to get as far as T-R-A

 _On second thought, I might not be able to do this now..._

He pocketed the note and continued to recline on the elevator handle until he felt a brief moment of weightless as the elevator stopped at the ground floor.

 _Finally...getting out of the dungeon._

The double doors opened. And what he saw standing in the doorway almost made him jump out of his skin.

From what he knew, the building was deserted at this time save for a lone janitor or technician who needed to check up on the robots. Normally, the manager/founder/owner didn't show up until nine AM in the morning.

Yet here he was. Standing outside the opening of the elevator at six AM in the morning.

Mr. Afton was dressed in a dark blue-almost purple-long-sleeved dress shirt and a pair Iron-black shoes, pants, and tie. There were bags underneath his eyes and his charcoal-black hair slightly messed up from what Emmet could only hope was sleep deprivation.

Even in his bedraggled state, he still thought he was more terrifying than _anything_ that he had encountered in the past two nights here. (Even more than the odd voice who was _way_ too interested in his life). He found himself amazed that he hadn't wet his pants or curl up into a ball of terror already.

His tombstone-grey eyes glanced at Emmet, then back to his bills, and then back to him again.

"Emmet," Mr. Afton asked "Why is your face painted?"

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Sorry for being gone for over one month. I just don't really know what happened. I guess it just slipped from my grip or something...But that doesn't matter now does it?**

 **As for my wattpad account, I did finally manage to get up it and running. I put ALL of my stories one there very quickly.**

 **For my name it's "A wandering hobo," at the moment apparently Mr. Magical was taken, so I just settled for the next best thing. If I do change it, It'll probably say in it a chapter or put it on my profile page.**

 **Anyway, thanks for your patience m8s, hope to see you in a week or two like how it used to be!**


	12. Chapter 12- Mr Afton

**Sorry I've been away for like two months. Mainly, I've just been focusing on finishing out the school year well and getting a job this summer. And now that both of those things have happened, I suppose I've got only one more thing to do. And that's focus on writing with the rest of the summer.**

 **But before anything happens, I'll get some questions and reviews out of the way.**

 **Guest: Probably not. Sorry.**

 **Akatsukilove98: Thanks for catching that. It probably only happened because it's the way I speak and I somehow put that in my writing without really thinking that it was wrong.**

 **BreatherOfInsanity: Thanks :) I appreciate it when people notice stuff like that!**

 **And especially you, the reader! For putting up with me being slow and faving/following. (If you didn't, that's perfectly fine. I still thank you anyway! :) )**

 **And now, for your two-month late chapter.**

**Chapter 12- Mr. Afton.**

 _Note to self:_ _spend last five minutes checking top floor to see if anybody's upstairs before going up the elevator. Provided I somehow make it out of this mess with my job._

Looking back, Emmet realized that this could have actually all been avoided if he had spent the last five minutes actually doing his job. Had he done that, he figured he could have been able to see Mr. Afton long before he blindly tumbled out of the elevator and _directly into_ him.

What was even crazier was he somehow saw a good side to all this madness: had ne not ran into him, he would have walked out into the world blissfully unaware that he looked like a clown had Mr. Afton not told him about the face paint. Which he had no doubt would have gotten some odd and scared looks from people and the police as he drove down the highway.

And while that was all fine and dandy, that didn't mean that things looked like they were about to get any better here.

"Don't make me repeat myself," Mr. Afton snapped.

Mr. Afton's sharp command cut through Emmet's thoughts, and he remembered: the sleep-deprived manager was asking him about why his face was painted like a band member from _Kiss._

 _Oh...right._

Once he recollected his thoughts and courage, he answered.

"Um, yeah..." he said, improvising a response "So...apparently, the robots thought that I was an intruder and-uh-I couldn't really do my job because of it, and so-"

"You disguised yourself." Mr. Afton interrupted, finishing the thought.

"Y-yes..." He finished.

Mr. Afton continued to glare at him. Moments later, he saw the manager begin to walk to a nearby counter desk between the glass doors of the restaurant and the elevator that led to the underground circus. He plopped his bills behind the front desk (Which Emmet realized was now Mr. Afton's and not some secretary's.) and began to pace around the room with his thumb and index finger rubbing his sunken eyes.

He didn't know if Mr. Afton was just doing this to make him panic or if he was really thinking this over. But whatever the case: he was scared. Emmet shivered despite it being under three layers of clothing.

 _Just calm down,_ He reminded himself _I'm sure is like any reasonable person and will understand…But then again, I'm working at this place. And no sane person I know would be here..._

After a good thirty seconds of pacing, he stopped pacing and turned to him.

"Emmet Alfred Peterson." Mr. Afton said as he stopped rubbing his eyes.

From personal experience, he knew that it was never a good sign for somebody to call you by your full name, unless it was used in "I have a package for-"

"Yes?" he asked, feeling chills fall down his spine.

Mr. Afton stopped rubbing his eyes and looked at Emmet.

"Look, I'm not too comfortable with the idea of you wandering around the building at night looking like one of the robots," He said flatly.

He screwed his eyes shut, preparing himself for whatever rage his manager was about to drop on him.

 _Here it comes..._

"But...you said the robots were acting violent around you, correct?"

He lifted an eyelid just to make sure that Mr. Afton didn't have any veins popping out of his skin or appeared to be crushing any objects. He wasn't, so he could only assume

He nodded. And Mr. Afton sighed.

"You sure?"

He nodded, Mr. Afton only made a sadder sigh.

"If that's the case...I suppose I'll have to spend another Saturday debugging the robots, which is going to be _sooo_ much fun..." he said, thumping his head against the table from Emmet guessed was aggravation. "But until then, I don't mind if you use this disguise for your self-protection. I really don't." he added, straightening his tie.

Suddenly, he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders. Both from the relative calmness of Mr. Afton's voice and his understanding.

"Thank you si-"

"But," He interrupted "If I _ever_ find you after your shift with that makeup on, you're fired."

 _Wait...WHAT?!_ He thought, Mr. Afton's punishment hitting him like a sucker punch to the face.

"Um...why?" He asked

Mr. Afton then gave a _really?_ Look.

"Well Emmet, If you weren't already aware when you signed up, this company has had a rather bad history when it comes to people using the robot's costumes during the day…." He added.

 _What's he even talking about?_ He thought _I mean, it's not like this place is Freddy Faz-...wait...oh..._

Suddenly, he remembered what Mr. Afton was talking about. He remembered how when he was six, a read in the newspaper about a mechanical failure that occurred at Fredbear's Family diner, causing one of the old spring-lock mascots to crush some poor kid who somehow ended up in the mascot's mouth. He remembered when he was thirteen; he had visited Freddy Fazbear's (Despite his protests not to go) with his younger sister, Cynthia. Hours later he was escorted off of the premises alone by some police officers claiming that five children had mysteriously vanished from the grounds of the restaurant. He remembered how the franchise tried to re-open itself with new robots, only to fail again when somebody supposedly used a costume to bypass the robot's criminal detection programming and reprogrammed the robots to act more hostile to the point where they were scrapped.

Considering all _that_ , the harsh punishment suddenly seemed to make a little more sense now. "Sense", of course, being a relative term.

"I'm sorry if the punishment seems a bit extreme for something so small," Mr. Afton said "But you must understand: I really don't want a repeat like at Freddy's."

"I...I understand." He answered truthfully. "You know what? I'll remind myself to bring some make-up wipes next time my shift ends. That way, I'll be able to clean up before I go back up,"

He felt like it was a pretty lame excuse, but all Emmet wanted to do right now was get out of his hair.

"Please do." He said, slumping in the leather chair behind the desk counter and turning on a computer "It makes a lot less stress for you and a lot less stress for me,"

"I'll remember next time...sir," He added, adding the "sir" at the end of his sentences to stay on his good side.

"Good, now clean up before you scare somebody with that face of yours."

While Emmet was about to ask what kind of diehard customers would take their kids to a pizza place at six in the morning, he figured now may not be the time to question his boss' logic. Quickly, went towards the bathroom to clean up. And several minutes of intense scrubbing later, he walked out of the bathroom with a clean face and a dirty wet rag. Mr. Afton meanwhile, was typing and his eyes locked on the screen and seemed unaware that he was standing a few feet next to him.

He felt a strange feeling. Emmet wanted to leave the building, just like he had done in the past two nights, yet with Mr. Afton there, he didn't feel that it was...well...appropriate to just walk out the building without him knowing. Especially since he seemed engrossed in his work.

 _Perhaps he just needs a reminder. Just in case._

"My shifts over," he said to him.

Mr. Afton glanced over to him while still typing.

"It is?"

"Um...yes...I'm supposed to work from twelve to six," He said "And right now, it's six- twenty, so...yeah..."

The manager was silent for a few moments, only typing on his computer with his gaze fixed on Emmet. He shivered, unsure whether he was actually going to answer his question normally or if he was about to go ballistic like when his dad found out about Emmet accidently driving his car into a ditch.

Truth be told, he considered Mr. Afton to be the scariest part of the restaurant. Because unlike the robots (and like Emmet himself), he was human – which made him all the more terrifying and unpredictable.

Mr. Afton turned his gaze back to the computer screen and yawned.

"Well then, If that's the case, then enjoy the rest of your day," He answered, his fingers rattling away at the keyboard.

"Thank you..." he said feeling the great weight of stress float away from his shoulders. "And see you tomorrow..."

"Yeah, I'll see you at- What's with the bag?"

Emmet stopped just five feet away from the manager.

"Oh, this?" He asked lifting up his black backpack.

"Yes." He said, stopping his typing and looking more awake frightened than he had been earlier "That."

Suddenly, that weight which he felt float away from him crashed back down.

"Just a bag." he answered, sounding about as normal and as calm and normally as he possibly could.

Mr. Afton looked unconvinced and -to an extent- frightened at his bag .

"Give it to me." He ordered

"But-"

He snapped his fingers and pointed to an empty spot on his desk. "Now."

Emmet felt a cold wave of fear crash over him. His bag was full of video games (Not to mention the other types contraband and God knows what that would get his boss angry), but considering how pissed he looked and that he had threatened to fire him for wearing a disguise just moments ago, he figured now might not be the time to get on his bad side.

Unwillingly, he handed the bag over to Mr. Afton. After he had put it on his desk and started tearing through its contents. He felt his chills down his spine as he searched through his bag and found game consoles, some textbooks, and- most embarrassing of all- some comic books and manga that were _defiantly_ not for children that he had forgotten was even in the bag.

Once the backpack was completely empty, he saw him look over everything that used to be in there. He flipped through his books, shook his consoles, and look through all the pockets of the backpack.

Once he had double checked the _entire_ backpack, he slumped in his chair and gave an unreadable expression as he looked at his bag.

He was doing his absolute best not to panic and burst into tears in front the manger, which was kind of difficult considering that he just got busted for bringing in video games and M-rated comic books and manga.

Mr. Afton scratched his chin a few times, and looked more relaxed than when he had demanded that Emmet hand over the bag earlier. He sighed, and didn't seem to show any expression at the mess he was looking at.

Emmet relaxed a little since Mr. Afton didn't appear to show any of the standard reactions of managers whenever they were enraged, but he kept his nerves braced for impact, just in case man's solid and unreadable expression unexpectedly explode into a sudden outburst of rage.

He mentally counted to ten, still prepared to be lectured or yelled at. Yet when he counted to fourteen, nothing came.

 _Alright...Maybe he doesn't know that I played video games for a few hours….Or at least, can't figure it out..._

He prayed as he silently counted over again. By the time he got to three, Mr. Afton stood up from his chair.

"How long did you play ?" He asked. His words short and sharp. "And don't lie, because this didn't get this warm by being near a heater."

 _Are you kidding me?!_

He glanced around for some answer with no avail, and out of stress, he started to bite the bottom part of his lip.

 _Crap_. _Balls. Piss..._

He began listing off every cuss word he knew until he finally ran out and actually started to think of something.

 _...Come on...think of something!_

He was sure that he had a logical, believable, and BS excuse to Mr. Afton as to why there were several used consoles in his backpack, but when he tried to talk he just found himself standing there unable to answer.

"Emmet, I'm not mad at you," Mr. Afton added "I just want to know: did you play video games this morning during your shift?"

Emmet felt a hopeless feeling as he felt his years of experience of lying and deceit evaporate as he struggled to come up with a way out of this mess.

 _Perhaps..._ He thought _Perhaps it's better that I should admit the truth...Or, at least, it's better in this lose-lose situation_ ….

He licked his lips, and found himself almost struggling to speak his mind, until finally, he spoke.

"Yes." He admitted. "Yes I did."

He felt shivers down his spine as he said those words. Mr. Afton continued to remain solemn and unfazed as he sat back into his chair, re-examining the contents of the bag before looking back at him.

"How long did you play?" He asked.

"About two hours, sir."

Truth be told, he kind of lost track of how long he played, but he figured that two hours was a good estimate for a six-hour shift.

Mr. Afton sighed, rubbing the stubble of a beard on his chin as he slumped back into his large leather chair.

"I guess today's your lucky day then," He said

"Lucky?"

He then walked over to a somewhat neat counter desk near the entrance of the elevator (Which Emmet thought was the secretary's.). Mr. Afton then opened up a file cabinet underneath the desk and pulled out an oddly-familiar paper with both Mr. Afton's signature and Emmet's own scrawl for a signature on the bottom right corner.

"Remember this?" he asked, waving the paper.

"Yes," he answered "It's my employment contract….right?"

"It is," he said "And according to this, I can't officially fire you until the end of the week-long grace period."

Personally, he never even read the entirety of the employment contract, but he had a good feeling that it was one of those contracts that had all of the bad and or good stuff in the fine print that nobody bothered to read

 _Yes!_ _Thank God for the tiny print I didn't bother to read!_

Emmet almost broke into a good mood until he remembered something Mr. Afton said...something about...

 _Wait...officially?_

"What do you mean ' _officially_ fire me'?" he asked

Mr. Afton looked away from the computer.

"What I mean is that until Friday, you have a job." He said, his fingers continuing to clack away. "After that, you're done."

Emmet stood there utterly dazed. And after a few seconds of processing what he just herd, he finally understood what his manager was saying - He was going to be fired.

Normally, he would feel devastated that he was going to lose a job, but for some reason, he felt _relieved_ rather than bashing his head against a wall from rage _._ Admittedly, his job was seriously beginning to cut into his ever-shrinking free and study time. In addition the _many_ near-death experiences he had with the robots would also make his life a whole lot easier. If anything, Emmet was more than willing to accept his firing, since it was a smarter and safer path to take.

Yet...something felt off. Sure, he was feeling somewhat better knowing that it would all end soon, but while he was happy, he felt that he was missing something...something... _major..._

 _What could I possibly want here?_

He sat on that thought for several seconds, trying to figure out what could he possibly like from this creepy death trap. It certainly wasn't the food (Which was probably mediocre at best). And while the robots were nice, Bon Bon had found out about his identity, which Emmet had no doubt in his mind the hand puppet would use as blackmail.

Based off of that, it seemed that all Circus Baby's Pizza and rental just seemed like a discount Freddy Fazbear's pizza with deadlier robots and blander pizza, which in it of itself, wasn't too far off.

And yet...as he sure that there was something here. In addition to bland pizza and killer robots, Emmet was certain that he felt kindness, and to extent redemption from taking care of-

 _Wait..._

He felt his tired mind race back to life as he remembered there _was_ something he liked here: the one robot that after two days, had already made him view himself as better than what he thought he was.

Circus Baby.

The young (Or at least, programmed to be young) circus child who thought he was her older sibling and brought some much needed joy and fun to the robots and Emmet himself. The child, who placed more trust in him than anybody Emmet knew after he lost Cyhtina and even made him feel like he was being a good older brother again.

And by the end of the week he would never come back to see her again.

He remembered at the beginning of the night, he was late to work, yet, she looked like the most miserable child he had ever seen. And the thought of her like that every day for months, or years if she wasn't scrapped for being too depressing, terrified him more than the bumping into Mr. Afton early in the morning.

 _No...There has to be another way!_ _I...I can't let it end like this!_

Immediately, he thought about breaking in at night. Which he learned from experience was both extremely dangerous for him and very bad the robots anti-criminal detection sensors. And considering that Mr. Afton was learning from the franchises past mistakes, he doubted that he would be able to sneak into the restaurant the same way he did at Freddy's.

 _I'll do that only as a last resort,_ He thought _But aside from that, there's no way I'm gonna be able to come here unless I somehow change his mind..._

He stopped himself on those last three words. And found himself thinking them over and over again like a catchy song.

 _Change his mind..._

He sat on this thought for a few seconds, thinking over those three words.

Yet, he didn't know _how_ to persuade Mr. Afton to change his position on his current stance of Emmet's position.

 _Maybe..._

His eyes glanced over at Mr. Afton's desk, where he saw papers with a red _Urgent_ or _Last warning_ stamp on them along with office supplies strewn about and filing cabinets out of order.

 _Wow...he's really far behind._

And almost immediately, he came up with a bargain. He walked back to the desk. Mr. Afton still focused on the computer, taking several deep breaths as he mentally gave himself a pep-talk.

 _Don't be scared...if I'm going to be fired, what else do I have to lose?_

"Mr. Afton," He said.

"Yes?" He asked.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this..._

"Is there anything I can do to make you reconsider you...you know...firing me?"

He stopped typing and sighed.

"Why do you ask?"

"I...I just feel that I failed you as an employee, and perhaps, I can make it up and do better next time. And you know, not actually goof off..."

He doubted Mr. Afton would accept. He seemed the kind of man who didn't take to take begging from anybody, least of all from some employee who just spent the last two hours playing videogames during company hours.

Yet he didn't shoot it down.

In fact, Mr. Afton stopped typing.

"Well...this is the first time you messed up..." He said, twirling some of his hair. "Normally I wouldn't do this, but since this is your first time screwing up, I think that if you can prove to me that you're responsible and follow my orders while I deal with other matters, perhaps I could reconsider my stance on firing you."

"Anything!" he accidently blurted..

Mr. Afton smiled. Yet it was not one of friendliness.

"I suppose you can help clean up around here and help me with moving some parts for the robots at around five in the afternoon," He said "And It certainly be nice if you could help organize the filing cabinet, since I'll be dealing with the health department for a few hours tonight."

Emmet felt a wave of relief with Mr. Afton's deal. Thought it was a bit more than what he expected, he was just glad that he wasn't going to be unemployed.

"T-t-thank you sir." He answered with relief. "I-if you don't mind, I'll go-"

"And one more thing Emmet."

"Yes sir?" he asked, still calling sir to stay on his good side.

"Don't expect to get paid to do this," He said

"Yes sir..."

"And don't think of this is a get-out-of-jail free card." He added "If I were you, I'd expect your paycheck to be reduced by two hours' worth of work."

Losing money from his paycheck certainly hurt his already scarce weekly finances, but nonetheless, he was glad that he had a job and that Circus Baby wouldn't see him mysteriously vanish forever for no reason.

"Now, if you don't mind, I have a long and painful battle with the health department ahead of me," He said as he started typing again.

"I'll just let you be..." he said slowly backing away "I guess...I'll see you later,"

"See you at twelve." Mr. Afton answered, not turning away from the screen.

Quickly packed his belongings into the bag, eager to get out before something else went wrong, and was about to leaving the building until he saw a nearly buried picture of a much younger and energetic-looking Mr. Afton with his hair combed, eyes awake without bags, and a much lighter and happier mood compared his current state. In the picture, Mr. Afton was wearing a purple cotton shirt and he was _smiling_ – an action that he thought the manager was incapable of doing.

Even stranger was that he was holding out his hand to the picture, which wasn't skin-colored, but was rather a bright blue. To his left, there was a young brown-haired boy with a black and grey striped shirt also had a gleeful smile and had his small, yellow-painted hand open to the camera. To Mr. Afton's right, a girl wore a blue dress and her orange hair in two ponytails and likewise had her left hand opened up and painted red.

Behind Mr. Afton, he saw that the three colors that they had on their hands had painted a basic scene of a red house, yellow sun, blue lake, green trees (From what Emmet guessed colors mixing.), and purple mountain on the crisp white wall.

 _What a nice family_.

He was about to ask Mr. Afton if that man in the picture was really him and if the children in it were really his children, but given that Mr. Afton seemed pretty mad from the whole video-game incident, he figured that perhaps it was better to not invade his private life.

 _Later._ He thought _Either when he's less angry at me or if have a clean slate soon._

He stepped out of the small restaurant. His nose nipped by the chilly mid-February air. The early rays of sun painting the sky with shades of pink, red, yellow, blue and purple, but it was not bright enough to completely everything, causing the trees and buildings to be pitch black silhouettes against the vibrant sky.

But, the pretty sky wasn't what Emmet was really looking at. Instead, he made a visible puff of anger as he saw his car, once again, frosted over on the windows.

He gritted his teeth and made a low _gurr_ of anger. Yesterday, he bought a fifty-dollar, anti-freeze chemical to make sure that there wouldn't be any ice on his windows.

And yet there was. And after brushing over it, it looked like it wouldn't come off unless he scraped it off.

 _Fuck my life._

He then snapped. Finally released a cluster of swear words and built up rage describing the hell that he went through at the chemical, despite the fact that it was just a chemical and couldn't actually hear him.

When he finished, he was inside the car and shivering as he waited for the car to heat up and melt the ice from the windows so he could see again. There wasn't anything good on the radio, and almost considered taking a nap in his car until he felt the "list" that Toy Freddy had given him.

 _Well...might as well figure out what this is...better than staying here._

He turned on his interior lights and began deciphering the first of the crayon-colored mess on the napkin.

 _Let's see..._ he thought. _Trapeze...doable... Air cannon?! Oh God..._

 **End of Chapter.**

 **Sorry I changed the rating. Just felt that since I had officially said the F-word, it was no longer K+.**

 **Anyway, that's all for now. Hope the next update is within a few days since I'm back in the groove!**


	13. Chapter 13 - An evening with Afton

**Chapter 13 – An Evening with Afton**

"Seven-thirty...Wow,"

"What about it?"

"I never finish by seven thirty. Usually it's by eleven thirty or midnight when I'm done, sometimes even later..." Afton said.

Initially, he thought this would be easy. Or at least, it was when he first came at five. There were a few people that he didn't know working there that gave him some suspicious looks, mostly college kids like him and few adults, and it took him a few seconds to realize that this was the place he actually worked at.

He was right when he said that this place looked better in the daylight. The long shadows outside of the corner of his eye were gone, as well as any indication that this place could look like something out of a _Saw_ movie. Bright reds on the walls looked more ripe strawberries instead of dried blood, posters looked happy and cheerful instead of creepily watching him with plastered-on expressions, and the cold black walls actually being a warm shade of dark plum. And unlike the night, there were actually a few families passing through and a few workers that gave him suspicious looks, mostly college kids like him and few adults, before they realized that he worked there along with them, except at night.

The daylight made the place so radically different, that Emmet actually had to remind himself that this was in fact the same restaurant with a mysterious voice that spoke to him and also housed the robots that had a bone to pick with the night guard for shocking them.

Mr. Afton shook him out of his shock, and got him to start working on whatever he had planned for him.

Initially, he thought he would it would be nothing too difficult from what he had said last night. Perhaps nothing more than a few areas to clean up, maybe organizing a few folders out of place, and moving around some cargo. Nothing too extreme that he could not handle of finish before it was too late. And possibly, he could visit the robots and possibly see their performance and how they actually acted in the daylight.

That was, until he saw the dumpster fire that was Mr. Afton's desk, filing cabinet, and general organization of the restaurant/ rental store's important documents, files, and blueprints. Once he saw _that_ suddenly, it became obvious that this would be anything but not too extreme and something he could finish early.

And after two and a half long hours of cleaning up the restaurant, organizing papers, cleaning cabinets, moving boxes and spare parts to the supply closet (Strangely, all of the rooms that he glanced into were completely empty.), occasional business stuff for Mr. Afton, and other meager tasks from Five in the afternoon to seven thirty at night, he felt completely brain-dead. How secretaries and other officer workers managed to do this drudgery for over eight hours amazed Emmet, and if anything, made him appreciate their work, however boring it was.

Despite the drudgery, he could not help but feel a little bit of pride from how much they (Mostly Emmet) managed to accomplish the Two and a half hours of constant cleaning and reorganizing. And for the first time he had seen him, Mr. Afton actually looked pleased. Or at least, content with him and his now very clean desk and almost organized filing cabinet.

"Well, that's the last of them," Emmet said a yellow manila folder labeled _blueprints/prototypes_ into the filing cabinet. "Anything else?"

Afton stood there, looking around the lobby for a few brief seconds before stopped.

"Nope," He said "Not that I can think of,"

Emmet felt a wave of relief sweep over him as he closed the last of the filing cabinets and stretched from his hunched over position, feeling a pleasure-filled crack of his spine and the tingle of pins and needles in his feet.

 _Two and a half hours_ He thought.Two and a half hours of his life down the tube. Two and a half _long_ and boring hours for that matter that he could have done something better with rather than organizing. But he could only assume that he was doing what was right; after all, his job was at stake. Better to lose a few hours of his life if it meant that he could keep a job. Or at the very least, see the robots when they weren't performing in some high-security defense mode at night.

If anything, this was good start to learn some of the more important lessons of life. Although he wasn't sure what the lesson was for doing this, he figured it was somewhere around the lines of _don't goof off at work._ Or _don't bring videogames to work._ Or, at the very least, _bring a less conspicuous bag for when going to work._ Eitherway, the effect was still the same – be more responsible or else. And while those Two and a half hours were enough to make him not ever do that under Afton's watchful eye, he was sure that there had to be something a bit more than just that. Something _greater_ about this that Mr. Afton might have been hinting at that he wasn't getting.

He was reluctant to ask, but after seeing him cheerfully talk to some workers, his spirits and confidence rose.

 _He seems happy...or at least, he doesn't look like he'll fire me on the spot, so I minus well give it a shot…._

"Hey Mr. Afton, can I ask you something?" He asked.

"Yes?" Mr. Afton answered.

"Now I don't mean to bother you...but how does making me do all this crap make me a more responsible person?"

For a moment, he saw the manager's eyes blink with unexpected surprise.

 _Oops…_ He thought _probably should have said it a bit nicer..._

Strangely, Afton didn't seem to be grumpy. In fact, he had an almost devious grin, like a child trying to lie to their parents.

"Yeah…about that..."

"What about it?" Emmet asked raising an eyebrow.

"...It doesn't."

 _Ahh...Wait…. WHAT?!_

Suddenly, Emmet snapped back into reality from Afton's words.

"W-w-what?!"

"It doesn't make you a more responsible person," Afton said

"B-but you said that I needed to be here!"

"No I didn't," Afton refuted, "I just said, that it would be _nice_ if you _could_ help out. I never said that you _had_ to do it,"

He was speechless. Processing what was happening.

 _There goes two and a half hours of my life….as well as any sort of moral advancement whatsoever….._

"But- you were gonna fire me!"

"True." Afton said rubbing his stubble under his chin. "But since you actually showed up and helped, I may reconsider my stance on you...I mean, you clearly are a responsible person, and there's defiantly something that's keeping you here aside from the pay."

Emmet sat in the plastic hair for a few seconds, his mind in utter dismay with the news.

"So...I just spent most of my evening just cleaning up this office for no reason or reward whatsoever." He said.

"Well, not entirely, my office is clean now. Certainly makes my life a lot easier..."

He sat there, still processing the events.

 _Hey..._ He thought _maybe he sees me as better than before..._

"And... I could still be fired?" He asked.

"Maybe, maybe not..." He said "I'll probably let you know tomorrow."

Emmet was still stunned with what he heard. Two and a half hours of work. And after all that, the only thing he got out of it was just a _maybe_ on his possibility of being fired. There were about a hundred things that Emmet wanted to say to him, most of them cuss words that would have probably gotten him fired, but the only words that he could squeeze out were: "I feel used and abused,"

"Welcome to the real world kiddo," Mr. Afton said, stretching as he walked away from the now clean desk. "The night's still young by the way; you don't have to be here until twelve."

"I...don't?" He asked

"Nope." He said. "You've already stayed for over Two and a half hours here, no need to make you to stay here any longer than you have too."

He made a tired smile. At least he could go home and maybe mess around on his computer before he had to come back here and deal with the robots, and whatever else hid in these halls at the darkest hours of night.

"Well then, see you in the morning Mr. Afton," He said

"See you then," Mr. Afton answered.

Emmet stretched, and for a brief moment, looked over the now organized desk, imagining some sort of before and after effect like they showed for as seen on TV products until his eyes fell on a picture. More specifically, the picture with a younger Mr. Afton painting on a wall with Two and a half small children. And while Emmet couldn't deny that it was cute, it was strange. Not the picture itself, but now that the desk was empty, he couldn't find any other pictures or indication of the family in the picture anywhere. Just some bills that were nicely organized, a mug to hold pencils, another place to hold paper... yet no pictures. No notes. No crayon drawings.

Something seemed off. Emmet felt it. Although he had only known his manager for a few days and had seen him even less than those days, his work experience came from a library, several restaurants, and a single internship working at a power plant of all places, he knew that most managers, if they had a desk that they used often, usually had a _few_ pictures of their family or their loved ones hanging around in the desk to help them through the day.

Mr. Afton basically _lived_ on that desk, yet had nothing aside from that small, dusty picture to serve as any indication that he had a family. Nothing. Not even a slip of paper or note from his family. In fact, Emmet was sure that had he not noticed the picture, he would have assumed that the manager would have been single.

This was troubling. Surely, if he did have a family, wouldn't he have at least mentioned them, or at least had something else other than this tucked-away photo to show proof somehow?

Emmet could only look at the picture as his mind drifted away, thinking bout the odd dilemma.

 _This makes no sense...he would have said something...anything about them...unless...something happened to them...something he doesn't want to talk about...or remember...naw, that's crazy. Think for a minute Emmet! Maybe he's just a really personal man. I mean, I do have a friend who didn't even mention his parents divorced until he brought it up. Surely Afton's no different, right? He's just introverted. He acts like it, and seems to only talk with me when he has to. Yeah, that has to be it. And if that's the case, then I should stop thinking about this and-_

"Hey Emmet, are you okay?" Mr. Afton asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"Oh! Um..." Emmet stammered, abruptly coming back into reality "I'm sorry...it's just,"

"Just what?"

"Um..."

"Emmet..." He said, lowering his voice "Is there something you wish to tell me?"

"I-I-I-I-I," He stammered, scared to lie to the manager after the last time, "I know I shouldn't be looking through your stuff, but...I was organizing and I saw this picture of...you and your family I guess?"

"What picture?" He asked

"That one," he said, pointing to the picture on the desk.

Emmet stepped aside, feeling whatever sense of pride and accomplishment crash dead in its tracks. And soon, Afton had taken the picture from its spot, and was looking at it intently.

As he looked at the picture and the man looking at it, he tried to see the resemblance between the two. Although he knew they were the same man, Mr. Afton appeared to only be distantly related to the man in the picture, with only time, stress, and God-knew what else separating them.

After a few seconds of looking over his shoulder, Emmet realized what he was doing, and retreated. Mr. Afton turned around, Emmet far enough to appear that he wasn't looking over him a few moments ago.

"I….I don't want to look like some sort of creep, but I noticed it and...I was curious about it." He justified, trying to make him at least appear a little more favorable to the manager.

The manager only smirked.

"You were curious about this?" He asked.

Emmet nodded.

"Well..." Afton said "Since you seem so interested, you can obviously tell that my wife wasn't too happy finding us messing up the wall with paint. It was washable though, so it wasn't too hard to get off of the wall,"

Emmet smiled, imagining the scene playing out in his head. An angry Mrs. Afton coming home and finding her husband and children painting on a clean wall. Angry, but nonetheless touched by how he was bonding with their children.

"I can imagine that," he said pleasantly.

 _Then..._

"Um...do you mind...can I ask what are their names are?"

"Their names?

"Yeah," He said "Just I'm just curious that's all,"

"Oh..." He said looking down at the picture "Well, the boy in the grey and black stripes is named, Henry, he's my youngest. And the girl to the right with the pigtails, that's Charlotte, she's my daughter."

They all looked as happy as any child could be in that picture, Afton included.

 _What a nice family._ He thought "You're family sounds nice,"

Mr. Afton chuckled. "I have an older son named Mike as well," He added "But he's not in here. You know preteens, never wanting to be seen doing stuff like painting with their parents, always messing around with his friends, once again, without me or his siblings..."

"Well, from what I can see, your kids look happy with you," Emmet said

Afton smiled. "They do." He added. "They always loved playing with me. Sometimes, we would just mess around for hours. And for the most part, it didn't even feel like hours, more like minutes."

"Do you still play with them?" Emmet asked a bit more confidently, but still reluctant and careful if the manager snapped at him.

Mr. Afton looked down and set the picture aside back behind the computer monitor.

"Not as much as I'd like to," He sighed, his eyes downcast. "They're all gone and all grown up...you know, college and stuff...shame that they can't be kids forever. I'd do anything to be able to play again like we used too, even if it's just once..."

Afton trailed off from there. His face hardened, and appeared older with faint age lines becoming more defined in his face. And after spending an afternoon organizing Mr. Afton's stuff, he started to see where those hard age lines were coming from: paychecks that he received from the company (Which compared to the few pieces of personal finance that he saw, was barely covering him), the constant threats from the health department forcing him to uphold and go beyond almost every health and safety standard up to date out of fear of getting this place shut down. Emmet couldn't even imagine the stress that Afton was facing, low payments, long hours, pressure and stress from the health department, and under constant watch from the public for just one mess-up to link his company to the rest of Fazbear entertainment. He wasn't sure if it was because he didn't know what it was like, or if he just didn't want to imagine that.

And that got Emmet thinking - if he was in his shoes, he would have left this place and this company. After all, what did Afton even have here? His family hardly talked with him, his business was under constant pressure from the health department and frequently threatened with shutdown due to being a part of the rather unpopular Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria, and the rewards he got were hardly worth staying here from six in the morning to late hours of night due to overtime working.

What could there be? What could Afton possibly want from this place?

Emmet didn't know. Mr. Afton had already proved to be a far more mysterious and reclusive manager than his previous managers, and it certainly didn't appear that working Fazbear's wasn't exactly making enough money to make it worth his time. In that case, why stay here?

Unless, he was here for a different reason, like him.

After all, nobody willingly choose to go to Freddy's or any store owned by Fazbear Entertainment just for kicks and giggles. This company was always hired out of desperation or money. Usually both.

Or in a rare case, people came to find something that was hiding just beneath the surface.

And if anything, Emmet realized he wasn't the only one who did this. But he was rare. And based off of what he had seen, Mr. Afton too was looking for something. After all, why would either of them be here if the pay was bad there was hardly any reward? Or if there was any reward, was it really worth the effort or survival to achieve?

Emmet resurfaced from his thoughts. Afton was still there, looking at the picture, his gaze glazed over as he could only assume that Afton too was deep in his thoughts too. He wanted to leave him, just go home. It was late, he would have to come back at some point and work again. Minus well go now, before Afton says something that makes him stay longer than he already has.

And yet...Emmet couldn't just leave him here like this. Ending on a bad note was not good for him, especially since he had worked wasted Two and a half hours of his life chopping away at a chance that he couldn't be fired.

Mr. Afton already appeared distressed, and that was the last thing he wanted Mr. Afton to be if he was considering giving him the axe.

 _I mean...If now's the opportunity to change Mr. Afton's mind, now's the time to do it._

He gathered himself, and started speaking.

"I...I had a younger sister that I wish I could spend more time with too. So...I kind of understand what you're going through." He said. Hopefully being able to relate to him would make him back off a little more and at least make him a little more accessible and better for him to talk to.

Afton looked up from the frame, probably coming out of his thoughts just like Emmet did, his hardened face now alive with shock.

"You do?"

"Did."

"What happened?"

"She...She went missing a long time ago."

"Oh...I'm sorry about that," Afton said.

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," He said. "It's just that I wish I could see her too. Kind of like you with your kids."

"Guess were in the same boat, eh?" Afton said "Two men wishing they were back in the good old days?"

Emmet nodded. "I didn't think that I'd start doing that this early in my life,"

Afton chuckled, but it was empty, and sounded hollow, and more of a coping laugh than an actual one.

"But what am I saying? I don't think you're planning on staying here and sharing sad stories about the olden days till twelve, right?" Mr. Afton asked.

Emmet shook his head. "As much as I'd like to, I have a life to get too,"

"That's what I thought," Mr. Afton said, placing the photo back on the desk and slipping on a coat "Thanks for your help today Emmet. I'm very grateful and thankful for doing what you did today,"

"You're welcome," He said, realizing that this was the first time he actually heard the manager thank him for something.

Afton stood up and put his coat on. "And like I said, I may reconsider firing you for this whole videogame thing. Not a whole lot of employees that I know have stayed in this shift as long as you have. Or, at the very least, didn't like it as much as you did."

Likewise, Emmet slipped on his jacket, and after stumbling around to get the pins and needles out of his legs, he was about to lock the doors to the bathrooms.

"Wait!" Mr. Afton said "I forgot! We're still open! You don't have to lock up for tonight!"

"Oh...Thanks for catching that!" He said "Wouldn't want to be known around here as the guy that locked everybody out of the bathroom."

Mr. Afton snickered jokingly, "Would hate to have that reputation too,"

Emmet put the key away, and Mr. Afton began to walk out. And as he left the building, he couldn't help but think about the man, alone with this job, his children not even talking to him...and he had an evening all to himself, with only his wife to be with him.

Emmet felt an ugly feeling, something like guilt, but he wasn't responsible for it and realized what caused it – Mr. Afton still lost. Even though his office was clean, he would go home and have a night alone. Unless, he always spent the night alone, which was already sadder than what Emmet was imagining.

 _I mean...if his kids are in college, maybe he should at least talk to them. Sure, it's not the same as playing with them, but at least it's something._

"Maybe you should call them," Emmet hastily suggested. "Or...something like that...I mean, you can do that, right?"

Mr. Afton stopped walking and for a moment, he feared that he might have pushed his luck a bit too far by saying that, but Mr. Afton didn't appear to angry or too sad by what he said.

"Thanks Emmet," He said "I might just do that now that I have some time tonight,"

Emmet felt that ugly feeling go away, knowing that he at least did something to help the old man. And oddly, enough, that seemed to make those hours he spent a little more worthwhile.

He walked out of the door, and pulled out of the somewhat filled parking spot. Emmet followed quickly. And soon, he too pulled out of the parking lot, and left the small restaurant, in the early darkness of the night. After ten minutes of driving, he pulled over to a nearby hardware store and took out the wadded-up napkin, the smeared crayon making the already bad handwriting difficult to read. But nonetheless, Emmet was a man on a mission. And it would take more than just some smeared crayon-writing on a napkin to stop him.

 _Alright then..._ Emmet thought _Let's get some parts for whatever Funtime Foxy and Funtime Freddy have in mind...hopefully nothing too dangerous..._

 **End of Chapter.**

 **(Insert some hilarious quip or relatable sentence to try and keep the readers encouraged about a possible update. Insert lame excuse about how College essays and testing really weigh down my time. Insert how I will make an effort. Insert that I will see them in the next chapter. Insert how I feel bad that I have only made thirteen chapters over the course of thirteen months. Insert another thing if my writing somehow improved due to taking a writing class for an elective. Insert final thing about how they should have a good rest of the day and a better tomorrow, if possible)**


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